About ten years ago, Anne-Sophie Joly was looking for a job in the interior design sector. She submits her CV online and quickly receives a call from a recruitment agency. “The person on the phone found my profile extraordinary and wanted to see me as soon as possible”, she recalls. Appointment is taken the same afternoon in a café. “She had arrived before me. I joined her… But I quickly understood that the position would not be for me: I saw her look, her face break down as I approached. »
In a situation of obesity, Mme Joly has learned over the years to interpret the looks directed at her. They often deliver what social conventions prevent from saying. That of his interlocutor of the day told him that his physique was going to prevent him from having the job. “In the interview, in the street, at the bakery… With experience, we know how to decipher these looks… All of this is terribly humiliating. »
In the company as in society, discrimination can occur in the daily lives of obese people. Often quietly, they represent a real obstacle during recruitment, as confirmed by various studies. In 2005, the sociologist Jean-François Amadieu had carried out a test (a large-scale test, with a panel) on the subject. He had demonstrated that grossophobic discrimination in hiring took place in the telesales sector.
More recently, in 2016, a barometer produced by the Defender of Rights and the International Labor Organization (ILO) indicated that “Obese women reported eight times more often than women with a normal BMI [l’indice de masse corporelle, qui permet d’estimer la corpulence d’une personne] been discriminated against because of their physical appearance. Obese men reported it three times more than men of “normal” weight. »
A tenacious received idea
In question, in particular, stereotypes of which obese people are victims. “The employer can attribute negative moral characteristics to people deemed too fat such as laziness, explains sociologist Solenne Carof, author of Grossophobia (Editions of the House of Human Sciences, 2021). It also presupposes that they will have more health problems. » Other brake: “Our body is a communication tool, and we know how important non-verbal communication can be”explains Thibault Deschamps, president of the Vivons en forme health prevention program.
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