Discriminatory hiring against obese?

Good for him!!! 

I felt good that I went straight to my manager and said something but I feel ****ty that I can't do anything else about it. I flat out told her that I feel it is blatant discrimination when I look at our population and a massive majority is very young (I'm on the old end at 34), and very fit. The parent company is Japanese so we are very culturally diverse and I think that makes the managers feel that we are good across the board. 

So frustrating.

It's a load of crap. Do your best to make sure the most qualified person is hired. But that's all you can do.

It's absolutely discriminatory. As you say, he isn't a marathoner. I doubt his weight wouldn't allow him to lift a tower or crawl under a desk. I could do that at 300+ pounds.

You're not crazy & I think its discriminatory, companies do this all the time, its just that most times they don't get caught.  It sucks when there's nothing you can do about it.

Wow!  That's so upsetting. Sounds like a load of bull to me. It truly is one the the last "acceptable" forms of discrimination.

Rachel 

Nope, discrimination is totally accepted in the business world. I do diversity training for HR managers and have had the most ridiculous questions from the people that are suppose to know employment laws!!! PHRs and SPHRs!!!

So the fact that a person that is not the HR manager says something like that would lead me to believe you should organize training for your company. Yeah- totally get that the applicant can't "prove" that he wasn't hired because he was fat- however, if someone in your company at any point in time gets pissed off they could become a whistleblower.

You are definitely not crazy and it was discriminatory IMHO and sadly it happens A LOT. There is no federal law explicitly prohibiting obesity discrimination (Michigan prohibits discrimination based on weight and I believe San Francisco city policy prohibits it) and while obesity is a disease, the ADA doesn't specifically address obesity... so court cases have had pretty mixed results. More successful have been brought by those already hired when they have been passed over for positions or reasonable accommodations haven't been made, etc. 

It sucks.

The Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) is a great group that fights weight bias... www.obesityaction.org I'm a proud member of it... they do a bunch of stuff advocacy work, create educational materials, host a patient event, etc.

Anyway... they have produced a few brochures about weight bias in the workplace (free) and they will even mail them in quantity to people (free)

http://www.obesityaction.org/wp-content/uploads/Weight-Bias- in-the-Workplace.pdf

http://www.obesityaction.org/weight-bias-and-stigma/understa nding-obesity-stigma-brochure  

 

I will admit that I discriminate when I hire. I intentionally look for employees that are age 40 and older because the work ethic of the younger generation sucks. Wow, I just realized that I have been hiring at this company since I was 27, I'm now 38 and that magic number of 40 hasn't changed in my head. Now I'm almost to the point where I would want to hire myself! 

This is so wrong, if he is the most qualified he should get the job.  He didn't commit a crime, he's looking for work, he has done nothing wrong, but he is being judged for his weight.  Mute, you did all you could and you are right, this sucks.

I WAS an IT person, and I was 300+ pounds and 5'4" tall so about as big around as I was tall (only 5'3" now, I've shrunk!).  It wasn't fun, but I pulled cable, carried servers and PC towers, crawled under desks and everything else.  So if the guy has an IT background he can probably do all those things.  Unfortunately, if there is an equally qualified person who is thinner, they'll get the job.  I lost jobs because of my size...no proof but scuttlebutt said so.  I also GOT a part-time job once because I was big...at a plus-size clothing store lol.

 

Not sure how this got put in under my username, but I was never in IT and I am 5'7".  OH Mods what's going on?  Is there a hacker out there?