How weight loss culture continues to inform hiring

Thinness has long been synonymous with status, and while it may be uncomfortable to admit, “pretty privilege” is real, even in the workplace.

A new paper from Harvard University shows that after years of body positivity efforts, unemployed women who use GLP-1 medications for weight loss are more likely to return to work faster than those who are considering the drug.

“Their employment rate rises 13 percentage points overall and 27 percentage points after six or more quarters, and their weekly hours rise by nearly ten hours at the longer horizon,” Rebecca Diamond, economics professor at Harvard who authored the study, wrote. “Much of the employment gain is movement out of unemployment rather than out of retirement or disability.”

The study, however, did not find that employed women who use GLP-1s for weight loss enjoy a professional advantage. “For people who have been in a job a long time, the employer knows whether you’re good at the job; they don’t care about your weight at that point anymore,” Diamond told Harvard’s The FAS Current.

While more than 10% of people in the US take GLP-1s for weight loss, unequal access to the drugs could potentially shape the social penalties associated with body size moving forward, according to the paper, especially as the cost of GLP-1s rises, leading some companies to cut coverage.

Some reports have indicated that as GLP-1s gain popularity, body positivity and acceptance have taken a back seat, according to Rutgers University.

“GLP-1s have intensified pressure on people, especially women, to pursue weight loss at all costs,” Charlotte Markey, professor of psychology and chair of the Department of Health Sciences at Rutgers University-Camden. “There is a growing social expectation that if weight loss is now ‘medically easy,’ people should take on the burden of becoming smaller, regardless of whether it is necessary, accessible, affordable, aligned with their values, or even healthy for that person.”

Some health experts believe that the story could be more complicated than cause and effect, Women’s Health reported. People on GLP-1s may start dressing differently and feel more confident as they lose weight, according to doctors.

“If someone loses weight and feels more confident, they may carry themselves differently, make more eye contact, or be more willing to put themselves out there,” Thea Gallagher, a psychology professor at NYU Langone Health, told Women’s Health. “At the same time, we can’t ignore the uncomfortable reality that people living in larger bodies often face documented bias in hiring and dating. Those two things can both be true.”