Best practices for weight at work research

Abstract

Popular and influential social commentators have called organizations complicit in perpetuating weight-based bias and mistreatment. Although our field has advanced our understanding of the economic consequences of being fat at work (e.g., salary; job performance; and promotions), we urgently need more research on the interpersonal experiences of this swath of workers so that we can appropriately advise organizations. In this article, we describe how organizational psychology researchers can answer this call to do more research on weight at work (a) even while feeling uncomfortable with a topic that can feel personal, medicalized, and/or overly intertwined with other DEI-based topics; (b) by incorporating insightful research from outside disciplines that centers weight controllability and weight-based mistreatment deservedness; and, critically, (c) while approaching weight at work research with a respectfulness that conveys an understanding of the complexities intertwining weight, health, and personal agency. In culmination, this article offers to our field a flexible, living document entitled Best Practices for Weight-Based Research in Organizational Studies.

Becoming and acting as an ally against weight-based discrimination

“…We appreciate and agree with the importance of the Best Practices for Weight at Work Research outlined by Lemmon et al (2023). To help further contribute to this body of literature, we connect the scholarship related to weight-based 1 discrimination to contemporary allyship scholarship.…”

“…It is critically important to examine the development of allies against weight-stigma for two reasons. First, misguided assumptions about the controllability of weight (and resultant expectations that the victims of weight-stigma are solely responsible for reducing the negativity they experience by changing their body size; Lemmon et al, 2023) can be a mitigable but particularly pernicious barrier to people becoming allies against size based discrimination. Second, the direly misguided notion that certain discriminatory behaviors (e.g., commenting on others’ sizes, recommending size management strategies) are deserved, helpful, and welcome for people in larger or smaller bodies represents an example of inappropriate expression of mistreatment that allyship behaviors can address (Sniezek, 2021).…”

Beneficial role of mindfulness interventions in reducing weight stigma

“…Weight stigma involves stereotypes and prejudice against fatness, as well as a tendency to discriminate against those who are considered overweight. As Lemmon et al (2024) noted, weight stigma not only affects the perpetrators who disapprove and discriminate against fatter people but also plagues the victims, hindering their abilities to develop positive self-views and effective coping methods. I propose that mindfulness interventions reduce weight stigma in two important ways.…”

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Weight stigma is rampant in the workplace and substantially hinders the career progress of overweight workers. The focal article (Lemmon et al, 2024) briefly noted several interventions that, by emphasizing uncontrollable factors of a person's weight, helped mitigate weight stigmatization. In this commentary, I extend the conversation and propose mindfulness interventions as a promising avenue for reducing weight stigma at work.

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The weight of beauty in psychological research

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Lemmon et al (2024) present valuable insights into approaching inquiries on weight-based bias at work. For example, they highlight the difference between weight-based bias and other biases based on demographic characteristics such as gender and ethnicity, pointing out that belief in controllability over one's own weight leads to greater culpability.

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