The Effect of Work Discrimination on the Well-being of Obese People

Obesity, a serious health problem affecting millions of people in industrialized societies, has also a social dimension that has been mostly ignored by the medical and social sciences. In order to prove that discrimination in the workplace has a bearing on the well-being of obese people, an experimental study was designed in which 110 obese patients of a big Spanish hospital who were at the moment following a weight reduction treatment took part. As expected, a negative relation between discrimination and well-being was found and, in addition, this relationship was mediated by participants' work skills. Stereotype threat effects for obese people in the workplace were also considered. La obesidad representa un importante problema de salud que afecta a millones de perso- na en los paises industrializados. Esta condicion, ademas de los problemas medicos que produce, tiene una dimension social muy importante pero que no ha recibido la misma atencion que otros aspectos de esta epidemia. En este estudio, en el cual participaron 110 pacientes obesos de hospitales espanoles, se analiza como la discriminacion el trabajo afecta el bienestar de las personas obesas. Mediante un diseno experimental se demuestra que la discriminacion esta asociada de forma negativa con el bienestar. Tambien se pone de manifiesto que la relacion entre discriminacion y bienestar esta mediada por las ha - bilidades laborales de las personas obesas. Finalmente, se discute el posible efecto de la amenaza del estereotipo para las personas obesas en el area del trabajo. Palabras clave: obesidad, discriminacion, lugar de trabajo, bienestar.