Resistance to research on weight at work

Antifat bias stems from the belief that fat people possess little self-control; act lazily and sloppily; enact noncooperative, selfish behaviors; and generally are incompetent (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994; Crandall & Martinez, Reference Crandall and Martinez1996; Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015). This form of bias increased in recent years, a notable shift because bias against other historically marginalized groups (e.g., gay people, those of the Muslim faith, women) decreased during the same time period (Charlesworth & Banaji, Reference Charlesworth and Banaji2022; Puhl et al., Reference Puhl, Andreyeva and Brownell2008). This bias does not dissipate because popular culture reinforces these stereotypes at every turn, particularly through growing permissiveness of antifat bias over time (Lemmon et al., Reference Lemmon, Jensen and Kuljanin2022; Tomiyama et al., Reference Tomiyama, Finch, Belsky, Buss, Finley, Schwartz and Daubenmier2015). Even physicians, who possess the research acumen to understand the strongly detrimental effects of stigmatizing fat people and complicated relationship between weight and health, exhibit strong, destructive bias toward fat people (Major et al., Reference Major, Hunger, Bunyan and Miller2014; e.g., Phelan et al., Reference Phelan, Dovidio, Puhl, Burgss, Nelson, Yeazel, Hardeman, Perry and Ryn2014; Sabin et al., Reference Sabin, Marini and Nosek2012). Taken together, these findings may make organizational researchers back away from the study of weight at work. We may hesitate due to our own implicit or explicit antifat bias; we may hesitate to wade into waters where physical health is never far removed from the conversation; or we may hesitate because we feel unsure about a reasonable entry point. In this spirit, as a heuristic-based guide to understanding one’s own feelings toward starting to research weight at work, we summarize the hesitancies or defenses researchers feel around this topic (Table 1). Given the urgency with which we need to generate quality research on weight at work, we also provide reframes to motivate engagement with particularly germane research questions (Epstude & Roese, Reference Epstude and Roese2008).

Table 1. Defensive Postures And Reframes to Spark Research on Weight at Work

In brief, the three categories of defensive postures that inhibit research on weight at work are (a) antifat bias, (b) paralysis, and (c) gatekeeping. Those researchers experiencing (and admitting) antifat bias are not alone as beliefs about weight controllability, outlined in great detail in the next major section, pervade Western society (Pearl & Puhl, Reference Pearl and Puhl2014). Fortunately, one remedy for antifat bias is clear: Read up! Doing so requires you to carefully consider evidence that fat people do not respond to bias with sustainable strivings to be thin, and, in fact, stigma toward fat people is now associated with disordered, antihealth behaviors that can ultimately cause weight gain (Major et al., Reference Major, Hunger, Bunyan and Miller2014; Puhl et al., Reference Puhl, Himmelstein and Pearl2020). Furthermore, consider the body of research that questions causal relationships between weight and health; interrogates the viability of caloric restriction (i.e., dieting of all kinds) for long-term weight loss; highlights how contextual features, mostly related to socioeconomic status, impact weight controllability; and doubts about the prognosis that fatness dooms a person to ill health (e.g., Bacon et al., Reference Bacon, Keim, Van Loan, Derricote, Gale, Kazaks and Stern2002; Benton & Young, Reference Benton and Young2017; Dulloo & Montani, Reference Dulloo and Montani2015; Fildes et al., Reference Fildes, Charlton, Rudisill, Littlejohns, Prevost and Gulliford2015; French, Reference French1994; Hemmingsson, Reference Hemmingsson2014; Liu & Guo, Reference Liu and Guo2015; Logel et al., Reference Logel, Stinson and Brochu2015; Lowe et al., Reference Lowe, Doshi, Katterman and Feig2013; Mann et al., Reference Mann, Tomiyama, Westling, Lew, Samuels and Chatman2007; McGee, Reference McGee2005). We share this not to minimize or denigrate the substantial body of evidence that correlates body size with health but, instead, to suggest that the story of weight, size, and health is more complicated than assumed. Finally, antifat bias also comes with a tendency to “minoritize” the issue, meaning to levy the costs of the issue directly onto a distinct marginalized group (Huff, Reference Huff, Rothblum and Solovay2009; Sedgwick, Reference Sedgwick1990). This manifests as thinking that fat employees control fully the “problem”: if they shrink their body size, a range of personal and professional costs effectively disappears (M. A. Johnson & Schminke, Reference Johnson and Schminke2019). Issues related to the viability of that argument aside, we urge researchers to take a more “universalizing” tact: When we all, irrespective of body size, acknowledge how riddance of antifat bias improves workplace functioning (and our lives), we are better off. We do not live in fear of weight gain (e.g., during times of hormonal change; during illness; during stress; due to aging, menopause, pregnancy, parenthood; due to simply shifting priorities); we do not feel anxious for close others in fatter bodies; and we benefit knowing that we are part of a culture where we give respect to a person rather than a body size.

For researchers experiencing paralysis when considering weight-based research, possibly due to a pervasive belief that fatter people are deserving of moral censure (Crawford, Reference Crawford1980), we point broadly to the knowledge generation mechanisms undergirding our discipline. Researchers can collectively create and push forward an agenda of research that, at any single point, lacks perfection, but, as a whole, advances the science. We only need to be willing to take the first step into the research arena so that the next team can lay their proverbial brick. Taking a dose of our own medicine, let us all cultivate a compassionate growth mindset as we approach this challenge and begin to chart a research agenda that, although lacking perfection, emphasizes progress. We outline this reframe in much greater detail in the next section when discussing the complex relationship between weight and health.

Finally, for researchers concerned with construct proliferation, duplicative efforts, and/or redundancies within the field, the study of weight at work is no cause for alarm: Gatekeeping only stifles nuanced discussion of what it means to be fat at work. To accept this reframe, we must think precisely about how fatness overlaps and does not overlap with other demographic-based research. First, most people believe a fat person controls their weight and chooses to remain that size (Lee et al., Reference Lee, Ata and Brannick2014). This contradicts current science related to weight: fatness may not be malleable for a notable portion of the population (Benton & Young, Reference Benton and Young2017; Fildes et al., Reference Fildes, Charlton, Rudisill, Littlejohns, Prevost and Gulliford2015), which implies that fatness could operate much like someone’s static ethnic makeup, even though others might observe weight to be alterable. Second, what does it matter if someone chooses to remain fat? Do we reserve respect only for those making choices that align with our viewpoints (Gordon, Reference Gordon2020)? With the powerful idea that counterfactual information can necessitate behavioral change, we invite gatekeeping researchers of weight at work to conduct important thought experiments around controllability. For example, liberal ideals give autonomy to members of society to self-determine gender and sexuality. We also intentionally give voice to groups otherwise marginalized by society. Why should this courtesy not be extended to fat people? We are well beyond asking that certain characteristics found locally within a demographic group change in order to conform to dominant ideals (e.g., we would not ask an African American woman to change her natural hair). Should we not extend that respectfulness to weight? These tensions—between what is and is not controllable, between what is and is not deserved, and between whose evaluations of fatness matter most, the actor or the observer—undercut the belief that little is gained (or much is duplicated) through examining fatness in the workplace.

Now that we worked to articulate hesitancies to engage with weight at work research, we can more squarely address how we can provide effective council to organizations. To do so as a field, three things must occur: First, we need to recognize the overarching state of the literature; second, we must address where weight-based research must turn next, namely how weight control and weight-based mistreatment deservedness influence our sensitivity and sympathy toward weight-based matters, with particular attention paid to nuances of the construct that differentiates it from other demography-based research; and third, we need to, collectively, establish living guidelines for researchers interested in weight-based research that reflect awareness of weight’s novel attributes and lets the voices of fat-bodied workers be fully incorporated into both our approach and execution of weight-based research at work.

The current state of weight-based research

Robust meta-analytical research on weight at work suggests that fatter employees suffer from poor economic outcomes at work (Nowrouzi, Reference Nowrouzi2015). For instance, organizations are less likely to select fatter employees (Agerström & Rooth, Reference Agerström and Rooth2011; M. V. Roehling et al., Reference Roehling, Roehling and Pichler2007; Rudolph et al., Reference Rudolph, Wells, Weller and Baltes2009; Vanhove & Gordon, Reference Vanhove and Gordon2014). Once employed, managers and customers rate fatter employees as poorer performers, irrespective of objective outcomes (Rudolph et al., Reference Rudolph, Wells, Weller and Baltes2009; Ruggs et al., Reference Ruggs, Hebl and Williams2015), and—creating a double-bind—train their fatter employees less effectively (Shapiro et al., Reference Shapiro, King and Quinones2007). Interpersonal mistreatment from customers, toward fatter workers, for example, also occurs commonly (Ruggs et al., Reference Ruggs, Hebl and Williams2015). Organizations are also more likely to punish fatter workers (M. V. Roehling, Roehling, et al., Reference Roehling, Pichler and Bruce2013). Further, organizations deny promotions to fatter employees at greater rates than nonfat employees (M. V. Roehling, Roehling, et al., Reference Roehling, Pichler and Bruce2013; Rudolph et al., Reference Rudolph, Wells, Weller and Baltes2009), and even highly skilled, extensively experienced executives suffer from stalled career progress if they occupy a larger body (King et al., Reference King, Rogelberg, Hebl, Braddy, Shanock, Doerer and McDowell-Larsen2014; P. V. Roehling et al., Reference Roehling, Roehling, Vandlen, Blazek and Guy2009). Research also finds that fatter employees earn less than their slimmer counterparts (Judge & Cable, Reference Judge and Cable2011; M. V. Roehling, Roehling, et al., Reference Roehling, Pichler and Bruce2013). On the whole, our field describes that fatter employees experience robust deficits in objective career success. Further, fatter employees represent a group of people whose level of stigmatization is high and who receive little protection under employment law (e.g., very few jurisdictions outlaw weight-based discrimination), making them a “susceptible class”—vulnerable to exploitation (A. F. Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Roberto, Black and Ahamad2021).

Why does this discrimination against fatter employees occur? Organizational research has begun to parse some of the underlying mechanisms. Research has found that, for example, we levy stereotypes of being less warm and less competent on fatter employees, effectively diminishing their contributions to both work product and beneficial social cooperation and coordination within the organization (Cuddy et al., Reference Cuddy, Fiske and Glick2007; Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015). This research also finds that we assume fatter people are selfish (taking more than they need—extrapolated from their presumed behavior with food) and that this selfishness spills over on their prioritization of the self over the group (Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015).

A final stream of organizational research has begun examining what we now know is a hugely pervasive and pressing issue: the interpersonal mistreatment—including bullying, interpersonal discrimination, and harassment—of fatter employees explicitly because of their size. Some 75% of fatter employees report interpersonal mistreatment specifically because of their size in the past 6 months, far outpacing other nonambiguous forms of interpersonal mistreatment (Dhanani et al., Reference Dhanani, Beus and Joseph2018), and chronicles the accumulation of a host of mental, physical, and occupational deficits because of the experience (Lemmon & Jensen, Reference Lemmon and Jensen2017; see also: M. V. Roehling, Roehling, et al., Reference Roehling, Pichler and Bruce2013). Incivility at large overwhelmingly impacts fatter people (e.g., they report being stigmatized over 11 times within a 2-week period, on average; Spahlholz et al., Reference Spahlholz, Baer, König, Riedel-Heller and Luck-Sikorski2016; Vartanian et al., Reference Vartanian, Pinkus and Smyth2014), so this finding is, on the one hand, unsurprising, but, on the other hand, jarring, given the emphasis on decorum and respect expected in professional spaces. Research points to the permissiveness of Western culture around mockery of weight as germinating and then minimizing mistreatment of fatter people (Burmeister & Carels, Reference Burmeister and Carels2014; Ravary et al., Reference Ravary, Baldwin and Bartz2019). It is from this point we next examine where weight-based research must extend.

Where weight-based research must extend

We know the rates at which weight-based stigmatization and mistreatment occurs—from economic discrimination to mistreatment rooted in incivility, bullying, and abuse—but we are less certain about the processes that both predict and outline the consequences of mistreatment. Although stereotyping offers one possible mechanism (Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015), how those stereotypes develop and wend their way to impact the victim is a separate matter. Fortunately, research outside the organizational domain offers many insights into this process, including clues as to why weight-based research should be approached with a different lens than other demography-based research. To advance this conversation, we next utilize this research to examine the stigmatization process undergirding weight-based mistreatment.

Rooted in Goffman’s work on stigmatized characteristics, we start with the established frame that fatness relates to both perceiving the fatter person as having physical disfigurement and notable flaws of character, including connotations with laziness, selfishness, and low conscientiousness (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994; Crandall & Martinez, Reference Crandall and Martinez1996; Goffman, Reference Goffman1963). Within the model of fat stigmatization, how that frame translates into prejudicial action remains underexplored. Justification-suppression theory (Crandall & Eshleman, Reference Crandall and Eshleman2003) offers broad instruction: Explicitly, factors that loosen suppressed bias enable prejudicial attitudes to surface, and instigators seek to justify their subsequent prejudicial actions on this basis. As such, weight attributes that reduce suppression—here identified as perceptions of weight’s controllability—and factors that give pretense or absolution to those who turn that prejudice into action—here identified as deservedness of weight-based mistreatment—advance our understanding of fat stigmatization. Though related, controllability relates more to the belief that one’s weight is a matter of willpower, whereas deservedness captures acting on dislike of fatter people; we find this difference is mirrored by the dimensionality of antifat attitudes (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994). Furthermore, there is reasonable evidence that both a perpetrator and victim understand, justify, and even absolve maltreatment based on fatness’s negative connotations (Crawford, Reference Crawford1980; Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008), suggesting controllability and deservedness impact both motivational mechanisms for weight-based mistreatment (on the part of the perpetrator) and attribution/coping mechanisms (on the part of the victim). To motivate more nuanced exploration of weight-based mistreatment at work, these dynamics are teased apart next.

Controllability of weight

Westerners generally believe that a person’s weight is controllable (Black et al., Reference Black, Sokol and Vartanian2014; Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008; Fredrickson & Roberts, Reference Fredrickson and Roberts1997; NORC, 2016). This spare fact blooms many biases and assumptions about fatter people: that, with sensible and diligent effort, they can alter their body size to conform to a subjective standard of not fat; that a lack of intentional effort, or more acutely laziness, is the cause of their fatter body; and that they choose to prioritize their own excessive needs over values of restraint, discipline, and conscientious effort (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994; Crandall & Martinez, Reference Crandall and Martinez1996; Fredrickson & Roberts, Reference Fredrickson and Roberts1997; Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015). Essentially, when we believe in weight’s controllability, we assume fatter people lack conscientiousness, willpower, discipline, and motivation, which are a constellation of attributes sometimes referred to as the Protestant work ethic (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994; Quinn & Crocker, Reference Quinn and Crocker1999); those without this Protestant work ethic are looked down upon within our individualistic Western culture.

Controllability of weight is a complicated subject, one that stymies even obesity researchers themselves (Belluz, Reference Belluz2022, Reference Belluz2023; Franks & Atabaki-Pasdar, Reference Franks and Atabaki-Pasdar2017), but it is exactly that complexity that belies a simple association between effort and weight loss. On the one hand, human biology is designed to be more interested in survival rather than svelteness, often resisting attempts to permanently lose weight by activating a variety of autonomic processes designed to slow metabolism and increase the reward value of all things food related (Bacon, Reference Bacon2010; Benton & Young, Reference Benton and Young2017; Lowe et al., Reference Lowe, Doshi, Katterman and Feig2013). The sheer number of people who lose and regain weight—95% or more (Fildes et al., Reference Fildes, Charlton, Rudisill, Littlejohns, Prevost and Gulliford2015; Ikeda et al., Reference Ikeda, Amy, Ernsberger, Gaesser, Berg, Clark, Parham and Peters2005), with two-thirds regaining more weight than they started with (Logel et al., Reference Logel, Stinson and Brochu2015; Lowe et al., Reference Lowe, Doshi, Katterman and Feig2013)—also reflect that, irrespective of the reason for that regain, controlling one’s weight is very, very difficult for the average person. On the other hand, sustainability aside, people can and do lose weight, and lose it often. A huge tome of medical research does show that weight loss is possible, at least in the short term (e.g., Dansinger et al., Reference Dansinger, Tatsioni, Wong, Chung and Balk2007; Hartmann-Boyce et al., Reference Hartmann-Boyce, Ordóñez-Mena, Theodoulou, Butler, Freeman, Sutton, Jebb and Aveyard2022). Perhaps most critically, by and large most people believe weight is controllable, including the majority of people in fatter bodies (Carels et al., Reference Carels, Burmeister, Oehlhof, Hinman, LeRoy, Bannon, Koball and Ashrafloun2013; Puhl et al., Reference Puhl, Himmelstein and Quinn2017).

This belief in weight controllability held by the thin and fat alike, even in the face of evidence that calls such a belief into question, makes weight distinct from other demographic attributes and therefore deserving of its own examination. Consider, for example, disability status. Those with a disability do suffer from mistreatment at work, including lack of respect, hostility, and economic consequences, but this mistreatment is less for low-onset controlled disabilities (i.e., due to factors beyond their control such as heredity or an accident), for those that can conceal the disability, and those older in age (Bogart et al., Reference Bogart, Rosa and Slepian2019; Lyons et al., Reference Lyons, Volpone, Wessel and Alonso2017; Namkung & Carr, Reference Namkung and Carr2019; Richard & Hennekam, Reference Richard and Hennekam2021). For example, individuals with disabilities for which they are not responsible are served by distancing themselves from the disability, as it reduces pity and improves manager hiring intentions (Lyons et al., Reference Lyons, Volpone, Wessel and Alonso2017). In this way, the consequences of one’s disability could be mitigated by framing it as controllable because that controllability is believable (B. Weiner et al., Reference Weiner, Perry and Magnusson1988), unlike the public’s general perceptions of weight (Black et al., Reference Black, Sokol and Vartanian2014). More complicated, consider gender and sexual orientation mistreatment. Modern views of controllability suggest that we are the gender we identify with and the sexual orientation we are born with; that is, we have little control over these attributes. Yet, on the periphery of society, some view it as a choice to be anything other than one’s biological sex or to pursue partners outside heteronormative standards. This faction judges a so-called transgressive gender or sexual identity a choice and, consequently, a violation of social norms. Although far from perfect (Doan et al., Reference Doan, Quadlin and Powell2019; Mitchell, Reference Mitchell2022), LGBTQIA + activism, including advances in transgender voices and rights (McCarthy, Reference McCarthy2021; Triana et al., Reference Triana, Gu, Chapa, Richard and Colella2021), have helped us culturally understand the more complicated narrative around controllability of these attributes (McCarthy, Reference McCarthy2019), effectively shrinking this rogue faction. The consequence is more organizational awareness into the lived experience of such workers, resulting in the now extremely popular Pride month celebration, employee resources groups for LGBTQIA + members and allies, and legal protections for these diverse workers (Abad-Santos, Reference Abad-Santos2018; Protections Against Employment Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity, 2021; Ronan, Reference Ronan2021; The White House, 2021; Welbourne et al., Reference Welbourne, Rolf and Schlachter2015).

What does differentiating weight from other demography-based research on the basis of controllability mean for weight-based mistreatment? Broadly, we, as humans, stigmatize more harshly what we feel people can control (Chaney & Wedell, Reference Chaney and Wedell2022; Rodin et al., Reference Rodin, Price, Sanchez and McElligot1989; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Wang, Toubiana and Greenwood2020), meaning that stigmatization of fatter employees is likely more sticky and more resistant to change than stigmatization of other demographic characteristics—such as those described above—assumed to be less controllable. Without clear, unequivocal evidence, pervasive culture norms about a fatter person’s lack of control over their own body appears inevitable. This is supported by the justification-suppression theory, which states that without information that undercuts stereotypes about a stigmatized characteristic, humans tend to act intuitively in a prejudicial manner, without much hesitation or guilt (Crandall & Eshleman, Reference Crandall and Eshleman2003).

Within the context of controllability, the dynamic between the perpetrator and victim of weight-based mistreatment can be even more finely parsed when we utilize a psychological theory that examines how we judge one another relative to controllability: objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, Reference Fredrickson and Roberts1997). In Western culture, judgment of one’s body size (and shape, color, age, etc.) by other people is viewed as natural, normal, and inevitable. This dynamic creates expectation that a person will accept and respond to an observer’s judgments insofar as they will put forth dutiful efforts to shift their body more toward the dominant ideal, which, today, means slim. Furthermore, the actor proactively engages in self-judgment as they chase the idealized form. This objectification process only works when weight is thought to be controllable by both observer and [fat] actor.

This multilevel process of objectification offers a clear vantage point for weight-based researchers to understand the implications of weight controllability beliefs on antifat bias (Lemmon et al., Reference Lemmon, Jensen and Kuljanin2022; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Wang, Toubiana and Greenwood2020). Objectification theory states that standards for body ideals are well known, meaning that a fatter person cannot plead ignorance that their body does not live up to some standard. Furthermore, the theory states that one’s worth is derived from conformity to standards—or more bluntly, the control they exert over themselves to meet those standards—which puts a fatter employee in the precarious state of questioning their own value rather than knowing their intrinsic worth and self-advocating when someone impinges upon it through mistreatment. Within this theory, there is no moment of reflection on the part of the observer about the fairness of the norms, or more acutely, if the norms are achievable through personal effort. In this way, controllability of weight is assumed, giving the observer license to comment on a fatter person’s lack of control (given the presumed strength of that social violation) and the fatter person stronger incentive to internalize the judgment. Finally, as a product of that judgment process, objectification theory states that not living up to an ideal stimulates self-loathing and self-flagellation because of the deep internalization of not meeting a critical cultural standard. It is exactly this self-harm that suggests fatter employees experiencing mistreatment may punish themselves because they knowingly did not conform to a known cultural standard. Sometimes this self-punishment is labeled as the ironic effect of weight stigma, and it is exacerbated as beliefs around controllability increase (Himmelstein et al., Reference Himmelstein, Incollingo Belsky and Tomiyama2015; Hunger et al., Reference Hunger, Major, Blodom and Miller2015; Lemmon & Jensen, Reference Lemmon and Jensen2017; Levy et al., Reference Levy, Nguyen, Kakinami and Alberga2021; Major et al., Reference Major, Hunger, Bunyan and Miller2014; O’Brien et al., Reference O’Brien, Latner, Puhl, Vartanian, Giles, Griva and Carter2016; Reinka et al., Reference Reinka, Quinn and Puhl2021; Zhu et al., Reference Zhu, Smith and Buteau2021). The importance of including the ironic effects of stigmatizing experiences into our models of weight-based mistreatment cannot be understated: The harm that fatter employees incur is not simply contained within the mistreatment, but instead impacts their entire posture toward self-care, self-blame, and self-punishment.

Given the foregoing, we now more concretely describe future research on weight-based mistreatment that addresses the key role that controllability perceptions play in the stigmatization process. First, research needs to examine the implications of controllability beliefs on the lived experience of the fatter employee. For example, what does reporting, whistleblowing, or other ways of self-advocating for fair treatment look like when a fatter employee feels that they control the reason they are mistreated? Preliminary research suggests that, in the face of weight-based mistreatment, the majority of employees do not report the incident (Lemmon & Jensen, Reference Lemmon and Jensen2017), meaning that scope and breadth of this issue may be underreported. Next, where and how does a fatter employee cope with the mistreatment when they believe the resolution—being smaller, which they control—lies within themselves? Fatter employees report broadly disturbing reactions to the mistreatment, from bottling up their emotion to self-abuse (Lemmon & Jensen, Reference Lemmon and Jensen2017)—does belief that they failed to control the abuse play into these outcomes? Mistreated fat employees may also experience the sickening logic of abuse: that they brought on their own mistreatment because they control the reason—their weight—that stimulated the mistreatment (Gordon, Reference Gordon2020). Finally, observers of mistreatment go through an internal judgment process when evaluating how to process the situation, including decisions about intervention (Reich et al., Reference Reich, Hershcovis, Lyubykh, Niven, Parker and Stride2021). Are those observing mistreatment of a fatter colleague less likely to notice or report such an incident if their interpretation of the situation reveals low empathy toward the fat target, stimulated by feelings that the targeted deserved the mistreatment because they control the reason for it (fatness)? Clearly controllability perceptions create questions that must be resolved from the vantage point of the victim of mistreatment and the constellation of actors who observe and have a duty to report and respond to it.

Deservedness of mistreatment

Intertwined and interrelated with controllability is the issue of deservedness. This idea suggests that perpetrators of weight-based mistreatment believe that mistreatment is deserved because by choosing to remain fat, the derogation, hostility, and stigmatizing consequences of being fat are deserved (Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008; see also: Romano et al., Reference Romano, Heron, Sandoval, Howard, MacIntyre and Mason2022). Through the lens of justification-suppression theory, controllability and deservedness sequentially motivate prejudice: Whereas weight controllability perceptions spark a perpetrator to unearth or unmask their antifat feelings, justification for mistreatment enable such feelings to translate into action, with the perpetrator relying on the notion that the victim deserved mistreatment due their lack of control (Crawford, Reference Crawford1980). To explore this, we again look at the prejudice suppression-justification dynamic by way of differentiating weight from other demographic characteristics and then describe how humans generate feelings of deservedness.

Deservedness differentiates weight from other demography-based attributes when considered alongside controllability perceptions. Take age-based discrimination: Because one cannot control the movement of time, acting prejudicially toward an older person at work because they deserve that mistreatment is unlikely—they cannot prevent their age. At the same time, race presents a slightly more ambiguous vantage point in that some people feel that a person can control their expression of race (e.g, wearing one’s hair in Eurocentric hair styles to signal assimilation; Dawson et al., Reference Dawson, Karl and Peluchette2019); the heinous subtext of such pressures is that stepping outside Eurocentric norms makes you more culpable in the racism received. Similarly, to not come out as LGBTQIA + at work can offer similar protection as suppression expressions of race (Corrington et al., Reference Corrington, Nittrouer, Trump-Steele and Hebl2019; Ozeren, Reference Ozeren2014); without disclosure, you protect yourself from mistreatment that would otherwise be partially “your fault” for not concealing your sexual identity. Although our intent is not to compare the suffering of different identity groups, we must note that weight as a demographic attribute that connotates deserved mistreatment remains much less ambiguous than the examples above when considering core characteristics of a stigmatized identity (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Wang, Toubiana and Greenwood2020). In other words, weight explicitly has features that intensify its stigmatization: its associations with controllability, previously outlined; its associations with factors that are perceived to impact others (e.g., disruption to unit work goals or interdependent tasks because the fatter person is perceived to be less competent; Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015); its associations with core self-beliefs (Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008); and its logical inability to be concealed or immediately changed.

Once more, research outside of the organizational realm suggests fruitful paths to understanding better how the process of stigmatization unfolds when we consider this novel attribute of weight: that one deserves the harsh consequences of remaining fatter. First, we must consider why an observer feels comfortable mistreating a fatter person, in other words, what motivates an internal judgment of distaste for a fat person to evolve into actual behavioral mistreatment of a fat person? Justification suppression theory describes a tipping point: When one feels justified in their prejudice toward someone else, that prejudice is likely to translate into action (Crandall & Eshleman, Reference Crandall and Eshleman2003). The theory of healthism describes from where that prejudice germinates. Specifically, when someone adopts an ethic of healthism, they believe that we, individually, have a moral imperative to pursue health. Weight, namely maintaining a lower weight, is viewed as a path to achieve said health (Crawford, Reference Crawford1980). As such, someone holding a view of healthism believes that failing to be slimmer means you lack discipline, work ethic, personal responsibly, and self-respect, reflecting stigmatization rooted in flaws of character (Goffman, Reference Goffman1963) and a pretense for censure (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994). Furthermore, failing to conform to health ideals can incite moral disgust (Lieberman et al., Reference Lieberman, Tybur and Latner2012). Critically, the victim of weight-based mistreatment can also hold a view of healthism, which may lead them to conclude that they deserve subpar treatment or even that they brought the mistreatment onto themselves (Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008; Jiménez-Loaisa et al., Reference Jiménez-Loaisa, Beltrán-Carrillo, González-Cutre and Jennings2020). The final consequence, then, is feeling that mistreatment levied on a fatter person is deserved—from both the instigator and victim—as that fat person failed to meet their moral duty to be slim. Thus, healthism must be accounted for in developed models of fat-based mistreatment at work.

With deservedness in mind, models of weight-based mistreatment that incorporate stigmatization must also account for the nuanced dynamic between observer and a fat actor. Neurobiological research found that observers are less sensitive and reactive to the pain of fatter people when they think that the fatter person deserves censure for their unacceptable size (Azevedo et al., Reference Azevedo, Macaluso, Viola, Sani and Aglioti2014). Our models, then, should account for both the motivation on the part of the observer to punish “deserving” fatter people and the potential for the observer to be less sensitive—or even aware—that they are punishing a fat person, meaning they are effectively ignorant of their own prejudice (Chaney & Wedell, Reference Chaney and Wedell2022).

For the fat person receiving mistreatment, we know that internalized weight bias, which indicates antifat sentiment coupled with the belief of weight controllability, is likely strong (Carels et al., Reference Carels, Burmeister, Oehlhof, Hinman, LeRoy, Bannon, Koball and Ashrafloun2013; Puhl et al., Reference Puhl, Himmelstein and Quinn2017). The majority of fatter people feel they deserve less respect, more prejudice, to be looked down on, and to lead less fulfilling social lives (Durso & Latner, Reference Durso and Latner2008). Research demonstrates that this internalized bias mutates into a feeling of anticipating and even deserving social rejection, discrimination, or social censure, all hallmarks of self-devaluation (Blodorn et al., Reference Blodorn, Major, Hunger and Miller2016; Crocker et al., Reference Crocker, Cornwell and Major1993; Pudney et al., Reference Pudney, Himmelstein, Puhl and Foster2020; Romano et al., Reference Romano, Heron, Sandoval, Howard, MacIntyre and Mason2022). These could include some forms of weight-based mistreatment (e.g., not being selected for promotion; being ostracized at work). Models of weight-based mistreatment must account for deprecations in self-confidence and self-worth stemming from mistreatment coupled with attributions of self-blame versus other blame, that is, “I brought this mistreatment on myself.”

Finally, when one thinks mistreatment is deserved, coping processes may be influenced. Fatter people experiencing mistreatment report mixed coping mechanisms, with the majority indicating poor coping, including mechanisms that include self-harm (e.g., excessive drinking, drug use, cutting themselves; Gerend et al., Reference Gerend, Patel, Ott, Wetzel, Sutin, Terracciano and Maner2021; Lemmon & Jensen, Reference Lemmon and Jensen2017; Puhl & Brownell, Reference Puhl and Brownell2006). In fact, many of the effective coping mechanisms (italicized next; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Wang, Toubiana and Greenwood2020) suggested for those being stigmatized could fail to work when the victim believes the mistreatment is earned: Perhaps they cannot manage information about their weight (e.g., their weight may be a product of genetics or illness) because they believe that these are simply excuses (Lee et al., Reference Lee, Ata and Brannick2014); perhaps they cannot reconstruct what it means to be fatter because the moral failing of fatness is too embedded within our culture (Crawford, Reference Crawford1980); perhaps they cannot engage in effective emotion work because their feelings of self-blame inhibit self-compassion (Hilbert et al., Reference Hilbert, Braehler, Schmidt, Löwe, Häuser and Zenger2015); and perhaps they cannot put in place effective boundary management by finding solace in an “in-group” because others feel that their weight may be communicable (Tapp et al., Reference Tapp, Oaten, Stevenson, Occhipinti and Thandi2020). For the victims of weight-based mistreatment, offering compassion and kindness in the face of mistreatment is clearly needed as they receive censure from both themselves and Western culture at large (Hilbert et al., Reference Hilbert, Braehler, Schmidt, Löwe, Häuser and Zenger2015).

Applied effects of controllability of weight and deservedness of mistreatment

Fundamental models of weight-based mistreatment can evolve based on our understanding of weight’s controllability and weight-based mistreatment’s deservedness. They can also inform more applied questions germane to broader organizational and disciplinary goals. As such, we articulate here how organizational psychologists may therefore benefit from this nuanced model and how it can advance the council we provide to organizations.

Particularly of the moment, numerous popular press stories describe how people are coping with presenting their fatter bodies (which gained weight during lockdown and stress of the pandemic) in professional spaces, post-COVID-19 (New York Times Video Team, 2021; J. Weiner, Reference Weiner2021). This is exactly the kind of conversation we want the field to feel comfortable entering! Employees—let alone fat employees—do not check their body image at the proverbial door, and we must have a better understanding of how the body image of fat workers, in particular, impact their daily workplace experience. Body image reflects how core conceptions of the self, such as confidence, competence, and esteem, shape shift based on one’s image of the self (Cash, Reference Cash2004). We can also address where this worry about how others will view and treat them originates—likely from their own beliefs that they should have controlled themselves better; that others think they lost control; and that they will deservingly receive judgment and censure from peers on their body. Historically, organizational researchers hold great interest in how self-evaluations impact workplace attitudes, behaviors, and interactions, and the model of weight-based mistreatment provided here—specifically one that accounts for controllability and deservedness—helps organizational psychologists more holistically understand human models of well-being.

More broadly, we can utilize the outlined theories to develop more fat-based models of predation of larger employees. Victim selection is likely more nuanced than any fat person at work will do, as predators focus on the more vulnerable (Aquino & Lamertz, Reference Aquino and Lamertz2004) and seek to reinforce social dominance in ways that conform to prevailing social norms (Pratto et al., Reference Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth and Malle1994). This means that victim selection based on signaling of a victim of nonconformity (e.g., eating something believed to be unhealthy might increase the perception they deserve mistreatment) can stimulate stigmatization processes as the person draws attention to their alleged physical disfigurement and character flaw (e.g., selfishness; Goffman, Reference Goffman1963; Levine & Schweitzer, Reference Levine and Schweitzer2015). As another path forward, researchers can seek to peer directly into the minds of those who engage in weight-based mistreatment to explore exactly how feelings of controllability and deservedness of mistreatment percolate into direct action, that is, to look at the process within the process. For example, looking deeper into the moral claims embedded in healthism, do feelings of deservedness emerge from more individualistic priorities, such as rights to free speech (e.g., I have the right to let this person know their size is a problem because it’s [allegedly] influencing their ability to be a good colleague) or even more collective priorities, such as the duty to care for fellow humans (e.g., I must be direct and brutal with this person about their weigh to motivate a change in their behavior)? Alternatively, research on the behavior of ostracizing another person points to viewing the target as both violating some norm (as occurs when one holds the stigmatized characteristic of being fatter) and being viewed as expendable (as occurs when there is a belief that a fatter employee is fundamentally unable to contribute to the work group) as key predictors of exclusionary behavior (Rudert et al., Reference Rudert, Möring, Kenntemich and Büttner2023)—modeling these same motivations may be instructive for understanding motives behind predation of fatter employees. As such, organizational psychologists who more accurately understand why weight-based mistreatment occurs from more process-oriented models of predation can be in a better position to council organizations on proactive measures to stem just prejudicial action, effectively providing organizations with advice on early warning signs that mistreatment will likely occur. This also suggests said advice can improve protection and support of vulnerable, “susceptible” employees, which is a valiant disciplinary goal (A. F. Johnson et al., Reference Johnson, Roberto, Black and Ahamad2021).

Interesting intersectionality questions naturally emerge as well (Hester et al., Reference Hester, Payne, Brown-Iannuzzi and Gray2020; Himmelstein et al., Reference Himmelstein, Puhl and Quinn2017; Munro, Reference Munro2017), such as: Do fat minority employees experience more abuse at work due to their size than fat majority employees, given the inherently vulnerability of the former group; and if so, how do issues of controllability and deservedness intertwine to determine the strength of the effect? Do, for example, multifactorial attributes that are perceived controllable (e.g., a fat, transgender black employee with dreads) inflame the strength of mistreatment? Organizational psychologists, generally, seek to understand the nonuniform, multiplicative impact of mistreatment on marginalized employees (Hall et al., Reference Hall, Hall, Galinsky and Phillips2019), and the intersection of weight with other attributes provides a fertile ground for how such exponential dynamics play out.

Finally, compelling work on interventions to reduce weight stigmatization reveals that convincing accounts of weight’s etiology—namely that a person’s weight has multifactorial origins, of which many are outside one’s direct control—reduces observer stigmatization and discrimination toward fatter people (Breithaupt et al., Reference Breithaupt, Trojanowski and Fischer2020; Lee et al., Reference Lee, Ata and Brannick2014). Such an intervention can be brief, particularly when emphasizing the role of genetics, and can have longer term influence on weight-based attitudes (Diedrichs & Barlow, Reference Diedrichs and Barlow2011; Hilbert, Reference Hilbert2016). Furthermore, information provided to observers that medicalizes weight (which is controversial among fat activists, we must add) by framing fatness as a disease or suggesting that excess weight relates to food addiction, which in combination suggest that weight is not as controllable as we think and therefore not as deserving of censure, reduces fat stigma (MacInnis et al., Reference MacInnis, Alberga, Nutter, Ellard and Russell-Mayhew2020; O’Brien et al., Reference O’Brien, Puhl, Latner, Lynott, Reid, Vakhitova, Hunter, Scarf, Jeanes, Bouguettaya and Carter2020). Media research echoes this finding: When media frames fatness as controllable and suggests that a fat person’s lack of control creates health problems (implying deservedness), antifat attitudes, including outright prejudice and punishment of fat people (e.g., through disproportionate insurance premiums), increases (Frederick et al., Reference Frederick, Tomiyama, Bold and Saguy2020). In contrast, media that frames weight as less of a choice than typically thought effectively suppresses this prejudice. This research suggests directly that reorienting an observer’s attitude toward weight’s controllability and deservedness directly impacts the observer’s interest in stigmatizing and punishing a fatter person. This is the justification suppression model in action—sufficient evidence to undercut one’s prejudice stifles its influence on everyday action. For those organizational psychologists with a goal of intervention and prevention of workplace mistreatment at large, creation of interventions to reduce weight stigma that incorporate controllability and deservedness as key mechanisms for altering the rate and intensity of weight-based mistreatment would help them reach their goal with more effectiveness and precision.

Best practices for weight-based research in organizational studies

As humans, we hold a variety of conscious and subconscious biases and prejudices. Weight-based prejudice is very common, very extensive, and has increased over time (Andreyeva et al., Reference Andreyeva, Puhl and Brownell2008; Puhl et al., Reference Puhl, Andreyeva and Brownell2008). Furthermore, when social norms do not provide explicit instruction and, relatedly, fail to punish or otherwise sanction those expressing prejudicial attitudes, discrimination is more common and less likely to be detected (Gaertner & Dovidio, Reference Gaertner, Dovidio and Stangor2000). Crandall and Eshleman’s (Reference Crandall and Eshleman2003) work on justification-suppression theory clearly articulates this: Without conscious, intentional, directed effort to suppress prejudice, it blossoms; and the same holds for weight in the absence of social consensus around fat-shamingFootnote ¹ alongside strong cultural narratives that fatter people can control their weight and deserve to be punished when they do not (Crandall, Reference Crandall1994; Crandall & Martinez, Reference Crandall and Martinez1996; Crawford, Reference Crawford1980).

This means our call to increase weight-focused research and to lean into the nuances of weight-based stigma comes with a strong recommendation to also examine and understand our own weight-based biases. There are two means to do this. First, we reject the victim precipitation model as it relates to weight-based matters. Second, we proactively follow best practices for inclusive, respectful, and sensitive research on the topic. With respect to the former, by critically integrating the foregoing research on controllability and deservedness into our own understandings of weight—and consequently our models of weight-based processes at work—we more accurately see how stereotyping and stigmatization plays out from the vantage point of both the perpetrator and victim, and, possibly, us as researchers. Narratives of controllability and deservedness directly inform the extent to which a fatter person receives blame for their own mistreatment (Cortina et al., Reference Cortina, Rabelo and Holland2018; Gordon, Reference Gordon2020). Whenever we (meaning the victim, the perpetrator, or ourselves as researchers) think that a fat person must stop being fat to avoid prejudicial outcomes, we invoke the victim precipitation model and reveal a particularly deep root of antifat bias.

Second, with awareness of the unintentional yet easy missteps to take when investigating fatness in the workplace, we offer these Best Practices for Weight-Based Research in Organizational Studies. These best practices—meant to be a living, flexible document—updates and integrates modern understandings and perspectives of fatness, specifically those embedded in the cultural commentary and the medical sciences. These best practices also respond to the needs of fat-bodied people, who tire of endlessly explaining why certain perspectives and viewpoints carry with them inherent antifat bias (Gordon, Reference Gordon2020), akin to how people of color tire of explaining racism or women tire of explaining sexism. We each have a responsibility to self-educate, self-monitor, and move forward more informed when broaching topics related to inclusion. Guidelines that address the neglected topics of weight controllability and deservedness directly aim to reduce prejudice that may otherwise implicitly embed themselves in our work.