[Mark Roehling, associate professor, human resource management]
[This video takes place in Mark Roehling’s office in South Kedzie Hall on the campus of Michigan State University]
Speaker is Mark Roehling: In this study we were trying to investigate two broad research questions that are related. The first was, to what extent does weight appear to limit the career opportunities of executives at the highest level. So we’re talking about chief top executive officers of Fortune 1000 companies. And the second question related to that is, Does, as we expect, the effect of weight, have a greater negative impact on the careers of women than men.
Our general findings were that being obese, which is a higher classification of weight than being merely overweight according to medically accepted standards, when one reaches the obesity level, there’s very little likelihood that you are going to make it to the highest levels of being executive.
In contrast, when you look at top executives to the extent that they are merely overweight, overweight women are also greatly underrepresented suggesting that overweight women—these are women that have not risen to the level of obesity but are merely overweight—are having difficulty or are being prevented or at least at a disadvantage in rising to higher levels. That is sharp contrast to the finding for men, where we found that the percent of overweight male CEOs was actually greater than the percent of overweight males in the general population, adjusted for age. So in other words, being overweight—merely overweight, we could say—appears to have a harmful effect or harmful consequences for women, and it does not have harmful consequences for men, and it may arguably even have some benefit.