Debate: Do fat men have it easy?

I have a fit male friend on the fast track at a large company who jokes that to he needs to develop a gut before he can make it to VP. Silly, yes’but according to research, he’s not far off the mark. And unfortunately, while larger men seem to do better in their careers, a woman’s large size can have the opposite effect.

A story on Jezebel reports on a study showing that overweight men do slightly better income- and employment-wise, overweight women are more likely to earn less and be unemployed. The catch? This study was done in Iceland, a country that’s supposed to have the best gender equality in the world. One can only assume it would be worse in North America. And in fact, Jezebel cites a similar study from the University of Florida in which researchers found that the less a woman weighed, the more she earned.

What do you think? Have you seen evidence of this disparity in practice? Is it fair to judge people’s worth at work based on their weight? And what can we do to change things?

Related:
‘ Debate: Middle-age women shouldn’t wear bikinis
‘ Q&A: The real reason we get fat
‘ 5 diets that don’t work