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Obesity-Related Discrimination In The Workplace

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Obesity-Related Discrimination In The Workplace
Obesity has developed into an endemic public health issue with approximately 500 million people worldwide and more than two-thirds of Americans overweight or obese (Hammond & Levine, 2010, p. 285). Research from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity reported that weight discrimination increased sixty-six percent from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s and obesity discrimination is currently more prevalent than prejudice based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, and physical disability (Kauffman, 2016, p. 1). Correlated obesity-related discrimination in the workplace is rarely acknowledged, and if recognized, is both tolerated and validated by employers and co-workers alike. In a society that devalues overweight people’s human
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