Reader Question: How Do I Push Back Against Workplace Weight Loss Challenges?

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Being fat* at work can be difficult to navigate.  There is already evidence that fat people get hired, paid, and promoted less than their thin counterparts, so once you land a job it can be really scary to make waves – even when you are faced with dangerous workplace weight loss programs.

I got a question from reader Marcella: “My workplace is pushing weight loss challenges, not through our wellness program, but through our work teams. As a bigger person I find this really triggering (and I don’t do dieting so it’s just a ton of unnecessary stress at work,) but I’m not sure how to push back and I’m scared of retaliation. What do you think?”

Pushing back against this kind of thing can definitely be a risk and how much you want to risk is a very personal decision. It can help to try to position this as you and the person you are asking about it against a problem rather, than you against someone at work. 

You might consider sending a message to the next person in the chain of authority (HR/your boss/Etc.) making some/all of the following points and asking for a meeting:

• You could explain that, as someone who practices weight-neutral health, you are uncomfortable with my workplace suggesting something that goes against the health plan that you’ve created with your healthcare professionals, especially since you don’t want to be torn between your health and looking like I’m not a team player at work

• You could point out that this could be triggering and dangerous for people suffering from, recovering from, or who have a propensity for developing, eating disorders [Note: for me, personally, I could talk about this in the first person but even if I hadn’t recovered from an ED I would want to point this out.]

• You could explain that, as a higher-weight employee, you very uncomfortable that your employer has a point of view about your body size (rather than being focused on work performance) and that constant weight loss messaging starts to feel like a hostile work environment for me.

• You could point out that the studies show that the vast majority of people who attempt weight loss regain the weight, and that this weight cycling is linked to decreased health, so could you please provide an evidence basis for the long-term efficacy of these weight loss recommendations?

• You can mention that all of the pitfalls could be avoided if the employer focused on health rather than weight.

• You can offer evidence for weight-neutral interventions, you can find a list here.

• You might offer to help design an optional employee movement plan with weight-neutral, shame-free messaging

If the weight loss talk is attached to your corporate health insurance incentives, I have a letter here that might help.

It’s important to remember that, though workplace weight-loss-as-wellness situations may become your problem, they are not your fault. There is nothing wrong with you, or your body. There is plenty wrong with a lot of workplace wellness culture.

If you’d like more support around this I have a video workshop for Dealing with Weight Stigma at Work (there is a pay-what-you-can-afford option so that money isn’t a barrier!)

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More research and resources:
https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/

*Note on language: I use “fat” as a neutral descriptor as used by the fat activist community, I use “ob*se” and “overw*ight” to acknowledge that these are terms that were created to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies, with roots in racism and specifically anti-Blackness. Please read Sabrina Strings’ Fearing the Black Body – the Racial Origins of Fat Phobia and Da’Shaun Harrison’s Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness for more on this.