Keeping Up Appearances: Why Fat People Make Less Money

For the past month I have been making the rounds on the interview circuit in anticipation of leaving my current job (more on this later). Last week I was relating the gritty details of each interview with a close friend and expressed my anxiety about receiving an offer from any one of the companies where I was interviewing. My friend responded with these words of reassurance:

“Don’t worry. You have what everyone is looking for in a co-worker: Looks and personality.”

We both laughed at the time, but later I began to wonder if his words didn’t have at least some kernel of truth to them.

How great a role does appearance really play in career success?

While physical appearance is not supposed to legally be a factor in whether or not to hire/promote a person, studies have shown that attractive people, on average, make more than their less attractive counterparts.

For example, a study highlighted in The Regional Economist reports that overweight or obese women are shown to earn significantly less than their thinner peers:

“Economists Susan Averett and Sanders Korenman studied the effects of obesity on wages, using a sample consisting of individuals aged 16-24 in 1981 who were 23-31 in 1988. They showed that women who were obese according to their Body Mass Index (BMI) in both 1981 and 1988 earned 17 percent lower wages on average than women within their recommended BMI range.”

Women are not the only ones to suffer discrimination based on appearance. While obesity had a slightly negative effect on a man’s earning power, height seems to play a much more significant role in determining a man’s salary, with shorter men getting the “short end of the stick.”

The study revealed the following:

“Economists Nicola Persico, Andrew Postlewaite and Dan Silverman tried to explain the origin of the “height premium.” They focused on white men to avoid possible discrimination based on gender or race. After controlling for a number of family characteristics that are generally correlated with both height and wages (parents’ education, parents’ occupation and number of siblings), they found that for white men in the United States, a 1.8-percent increase in wages accompanies every additional inch of height.”

While nothing short of plastic surgery can make you taller (or even thinner in some cases) exuding a polished, professional appearance can do wonders in how co-workers treat and perceive you at work. A recent column in Diversity Inc. does an excellent job of explaining the importance of following the corporate dress code:

“Corporate culture will reflect what is necessary to do business with the widest range of people. Since the United States has the largest gross domestic product (GDP) of any other single nation–almost four times as large as the next largest economy (Japan)–it is only natural that other nations adopted our dress code. Further, psychological tests show that we are predisposed to trust people who look just like us. That’s one reason sycophantic behavior is often successful.

Most human beings really don’t like change. Having a dress code simplifies the number of variables we all have to deal with. This creates a comfort level from which we can deal with what business is there to do: Be profitable.”

Some might argue that following a prescribed dress code, such as a suit and tie, is conformist, stifling, and reminiscent of a drone scurrying around a hive. However, what a suit and tie says to co-workers, bosses and clients alike is “Yes, I understand you–how you dress, how you think, what your needs are. You can relate to me and I to you.” And in business, this could mean the difference between getting that corner office or making that big sale.

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Related Reading:

• What does casual Friday attire say about your image?
• What Not To Wear
• Discrimination Continues Against the Obese

To Dress Or Not To Dress: Navigating The Minefield Of Office Dress Codes

I stumbled across an interesting news article in BusinessWeek discussing the Return of the Dress Code at the University of Illinois. As of the beginning of this year’s school term, students in the marketing department are now required to follow a “business casual” dress code during class or risk getting kicked out of class and earning a zero for the day. The article highlights both positive reactions (mostly from professors and managers claiming the policy will better prepare students for the “real world”) and negative ones (mostly from students who claim they can’t afford new clothes or are loathe to give up comfort).

I’m going to have to take an opposing view from most other members of my generation (as I usually do when it comes to work) and agree that formality of dress is important whether in the classroom or in the office.

As a student of a private, college-prep high school in my native Honolulu, I was required to follow a very strict, very conservative dress code. There were no t-shirts, no sleeveless tops of any kind, sandals had to have a strap across the back, no baring of stomachs, shorts and skirts couldn’t be shorter than fingertip length from your knees—and these are just some of the outfits banned in the page-long policy. All students from 7^th grade on up, as well as the faculty and administrators, had to follow the policy or got sent to detention. The principal used to even keep code-compliant spare clothes in his office and would sometimes make students change out of their inappropriate outfits before they could attend class.

While a little extreme (I’ll never be able to look at polo-shirts the same way again) and something I absolutely loathed, I am thankful to the administration for mandating a dress code because it instilled upon me the importance of dressing well and its connection to performing well.

Even after being freed from a required dress code (and the threat of detention) the feeling of being underdressed in certain situations still haunts me. Crew-neck, cotton t-shirts are reserved only for sleeping and exercising and I’d never be caught dead wearing one to work even if it does have my company logo on it. In college, I looked with disdain at my fellow classmates who rolled out of bed in their pajamas and made the short walk from their dorm to an early morning class. Is it too much to ask to put on a pair of jeans and brush your teeth? And although working in the dotcom industry affords me the luxury of not having to wear a suit and heels to work everyday (I once worked in an office where shoes seemed to be optional) I still put in the effort to look polished and professional.

I’m not advocating instituting strict dress codes in the workplace, different companies have different cultures and sometimes it’s not necessary for everyone to wear three-piece suits to the office everyday but I do think that flip-flops, sweat pants and Birkenstocks (especially Birkenstocks over socks, which are horrifying common here in Seattle) should be banned from any office environment. As much as we try to play down the amount of judgment we pass based on appearance, it is inevitable that people are watching, are paying attention and will form conclusions based on their observations.

After all, who would you rather trust to get your important project done? The person with the great hair and coordinating accessories (shoes, necklace and purse) who was thoughtful enough to detail to make it all match or the person who shows up to work in sweatpants and their college sweatshirt who couldn’t get it together long enough to put on a decent pair of pants before leaving the house?