MiChelle Garibay-Carey is a San Antonio singer-songwriter and recording artist who has performed professionally for over three decades and has legions of devoted fans.
A jazz and soul singer with the bluesy voice of an angel, she’s put out one album and is in the midst of creating her second. She’s also no stranger to dieting.
“My joke is that I’ve struggled with my weight ever since my teeth came in,” said Garibay-Carey, 53, who never drank or smoked but has found “comfort in food.”
She works in an industry where — especially for female performers — looking a certain way is as important as talent. Still, she was shocked when the producers of her first album — two men who happened to be obese — gave her the name of a personal trainer as the record was being made. The subtext: Drop some pounds before the album debuts.
“I became severely depressed,” Garibay-Carey said. “It was so hurtful. I was like, ‘yeah, I have a mirror.’”
The singer recently lost a significant amount of weight — “on my own terms, not for them” — but the memory still stings. She said that while performers like Lizzo, who embraces her larger size, are slowly bringing body acceptance to the music world, it’s going to be a long road.
“She is still bullied like crazy on social media,” said Garibay-Carey. “One of things you always hear is, ‘they see you before they hear you.’ They won’t listen to you if they’re not attracted to your image.”
You don’t have to be a stage performer to experience discrimination or stigma associated with being overweight, including in the workplace.
Unlike race, color, religion, sex, national origin and disability, being obese is not considered a protected class under federal civil rights law, which means employers can legally discriminate against job applicants or employees because of their size.
A move is afoot to address this reality, in Texas and elsewhere.
In late May, the New York city council passed a bill that bans discrimination based on a person’s weight or height in employment, housing and access to public accommodations.
It’s part of a growing national campaign within governments to address weight discrimination, with similar legislation happening at the state level in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Currently, only six other U.S. cities and one state (Michigan) have similar laws banning height and weight discrimination.
Here in Texas, where it’s still perfectly legal to discriminate against someone in the workplace over weight, a case currently before the Texas Supreme Court seeks to change things.
It involves a medical resident who said she was wrongfully terminated by the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso for being morbidly obese.
Fired in 2016, the physician, who weighed 400 pounds, is claiming the hospital discriminated against her because of her size. The hospital argued her obesity prevented her from performing necessary duties. (It also claims she was derelict in duties for reasons unrelated to her weight, but her lawyers have argued that’s just a cover.)
The opinion will be handed down by the court by the end of June.
The move to erase employment discrimination against heavier people comes at a time when more people than ever are struggling with excess weight.
Many Americans gained extra pounds during COVID, exacerbating a trend that began over the last 20 years. Today, more than 40% of American adults are obese.
Texas has the 14th-highest adult obesity rate in the nation.
What’s underlying the push to add weight to the list of protected classes is a burgeoning understanding that obesity is not simply a matter of someone being undisciplined or gluttonous.
Rather, being overweight or obese is actually more a matter of genes and environment, a complex, chronic condition that arises less from a lack of willpower than from, among other things, a society overflowing with cheap, ultra-processed food loaded with sugar and carbohydrates.
The “body positivity” movement comes amid studies that show many people considered overweight are in fact metabolically healthy, and that mortality and health measurements tied to body mass index are flawed.
(To be sure, there are documented risks associated with obesity, including Type 2 diabetes, a major health problem in Bexar County.)
At the same time, a revolt is growing against the diet-industrial complex and its negative impacts, especially on women.
But bias against people with larger bodies remains entrenched, and not just in the workplace.
Overweight people are more likely to be bullied in school, stigmatized by physicians and found guilty by juries. They’re perceived as being less worthy, intelligent or competent.
Studies show that while stigmas against other targeted groups, such as gay and lesbian people, have markedly reduced in recent times, prejudices against the overweight endure, with many (including overweight or obese people themselves) still misguidedly regarding fatness as a result of laziness or bad character.
Tens of millions of people are affected by fat stigma.
Studies show about 40% of Americans said they experienced discrimination based on their weight.
Overweight people are hired less, promoted less often and paid less. One study found women considered obese earned $5.25 less per hour than women considered to be at a normal weight. Obese men earn less than non-obese men.
The discrimination falls heaviest on those seeking jobs that involve dealing with the public, such as sales, experts say. It’s not just biases in hiring: Weight discrimination also takes the form of harassment, teasing or other types of toxic workplace behavior.
Sometimes, workplace stigmas around being overweight don’t arise from external sources but internal ones, which can be just as painful and dispiriting.
Curtis Ruder, 50, has struggled with internalized shame over his weight, which gradually rose to 400 pounds in 2012 after the death of his first wife. He said he sought solace in food.
Ruder had a good job with the city of San Antonio, but he says his size hemmed him in.
“I do think that my weight hampered my career, in so much as I was always feeling self-conscious about it,” he said. “I didn’t have the confidence to challenge myself and grow my comfort zone. Whether or not I was being judged or discriminated against, I felt like I could have been and I felt like I deserved to be discriminated against.”
Ruder, who today works as a nonprofit executive, said he believes that “white male privilege” may have protected him from negative consequences on the job related to his weight.
“I’m sure it also helps that I am an accountant and work at a desk all day, where it’s easier to accommodate an obese person,” he said.
Ruder had weight loss surgery 11 years ago and now weighs around 270 pounds, an “amazing feeling.” But it’s heart-rending to hear him talk of his “decades of dumb choices” and the self-loathing he experienced around his weight gain.
Laws can help change cultural attitudes.
Studies show that expanding civil rights protection to overweight and obese employee results in better hiring practices and treatment of heavier people.
The just-passed New York City law includes an exemption for employers who have legitimate reasons to consider weight or physical fitness in hiring decisions when it can affect job performance, such as for police or firefighters.
But in the main, a person’s talent should be considered, not their BMI.
“What you look like should not impact your ability to get a job,” said the city councilman who introduced the New York bill. “We should embrace body positivity and inclusion. It’s so important for people to feel comfortable.”
Such bills’ critics worry they will end up hurting business owners, who would likely face workplace litigation and the costs associated with these efforts, along with higher health costs, should obesity become a protected class.
Similarly, judges have been hesitant to view obesity as a disability — remember, a protected class under federal law — unless the person also has some underlying physical condition, such as hypertension. Only then can it be viewed as an impairment protected by federal civil rights laws, some have ruled.
Then there’s the question of “immutability” — that is, the idea that, unlike race or ethnicity, a person’s weight is viewed as something that they could potentially alter.
These concepts need to change.
An increasing number of studies show that obesity is a chronic, relapsing neurochemical disease, a hormonal interaction around appetite and satiety that can sometimes be addressed by medication, including drugs like Ozempic.
This growing body of research should put to rest outdated and punishing ideas about the reasons for weight gain.
We need new laws in Texas and elsewhere that address this nascent understanding. Employers must cease shaming and discarding employees or potential employees for their weight. It’s a lazy and unfounded waste of human potential.
Employers — nay, all of us — should exhibit a little personal discipline and change our thinking and practices.
