Managers who feel that they are good to better than average looking are more likely to discriminate against women who are overweight or obese according to a study that has been published to the International Journal of Obesity. In the study, led by Dr. Kerry O'Brien, asked participants to review a number of resumes, each with a small photo attached. Each resume was meant to be reviewed and then given a rating based on the potential employee's ability to perform the proposed job, their starting salary requirements and their suitability to the job. O'Brien found that all of the negative ratings were for women who were overweight or obese. Men were not included in any part of the study.

In all states except for Michigan, employers can choose not to hire obese workers without fear of a discrimination claim as long as they can prove that they have a real business reason for not doing so. Michigan has had a state law which protects against weight discrimination since the Eliot- Larsens Civil Rights Act was passed in 1976. Several other local ordinances, including two in California (Santa Cruz, San Francisco) and the District of Colombia also have anti-weight discrimination protections as well.

There are some business experts who feel that the discrimination is warranted. Obese workers are statistically more likely to miss work days, according to them with obese men taking nearly six more sick days per year than their normal weight coworkers. For an obese woman, the number is even higher, coming out to nearly ten extra days per year. Those absences cost employers across the nation an estimated $6.4 billion dollars per year.

A study completed by Eric Finkelstein, a health economist with Duke University, suggests that in addition to the costs of absenteeism, obese workers can also cost more for insurance. Health care reform could potentially push individual insurance costs higher for the obese especially those who will not participate in employer sponsored programs that would possibly help them to lose weight.

O'Brien's study echoes the findings of Rebecca Puhl, PhD, who found that women were fastest to reach conclusions about other women based solely on her weight. In that study, Puhl found that women, regardless of their own weight, were more likely to rate an overweight woman as "slow, undisciplined, sloppy or lazy" while they felt that thin women were "bitchy, mean, controlling, vain or self centered". The study used a group of 1800 women, ages eighteen to forty.