This is thin privelege.

According to this source: http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2005/10/25/32213/obesity-research-fattism-is-the-last-bastion-of-employee.html

%12 of HR officers think obese people shouldn’t have client facing roles
%93 would hire a person of average weight over an obese person, if the two have identical qualifications
%30 think that it’s fair not to hire someone if they’re obese (I think, considering the above statistic, this would be regardless of qualifications)
%47 think that an obese worker is a less productive worker
and, %11 think that it’s fair to fire someone, purely on the basis of their being obese. (And not say, their work ethics etc.)

According to this site here, there’s a pay gap between employees of an average weight, and obese employees, for two people doing the same job: http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2002-09-04-overweight-pay-bias_x.htm

This site says that there are few legal protections against ‘weightism’: http://www.foh4you.com/mem/library/default.asp?TopicId=313&CategoryId=0&ArticleId=19

This website comes from an employers point of view: http://www.braunconsulting.com/bcg/newsletters/summer2004/summer20043.html
it lists the costs of hiring obese workers, and basically says that obese workers cost businesses money. Given this stance, and these statistics, it seems unsurprising that obese employees are discriminated against.

I remember hearing a conversation with my mother, and my little sister, who was about nine at the time.

My mother has an assortment of pretty things around the house, cystals, statues, candleholders etc. She keeps alot of them in the entrance room, which is about the prettiest place in our house.

She has a number of figurines of naked women about the place. My little sister asked her about them. She was cute, she had a wrinkled up nose and she had something of a ‘naked people are icky’ thing going on. “Why do you have so many [i]naked[/i] women Mummy?” she said, with a bit of disdain.

My mother told her it was because when she was growing up, a woman’s body was something to be ashamed of, and that she displayed these figurines because she was proud of women, and their bodies.

My little sister looked at her and blinked. I don’t really think she knew very well what mum was talking about, I don’t think my little sister quite knew what being ashamed of your body is about. She shrugged and asked another question.

“Why do they all have such big boobies?”

Mum said that was just how the figurines were made.

I now think there’s something bigger in the question “Why do they all have such big boobies?” but at the time all I could do was nod.