Being overweight, a smoker and depressed at work should become as unacceptable as breaching safety rules or doing a shoddy job

Unhealthy workers are up to 12 per cent less productive than healthy colleagues

But what if you’re fit and use that 12% to sit on here all day?

absolute pish.

if you want workers to lose weight to improve their productivity, you’ll need to provide the facilities & the time for them to use it.

fat police, what next? brain police?

what next? brain police?

That’s me buggered then.

But what if you’re fit and use that 12% to sit on here all day?

There’s fit people on here?

anyway. rainy? not here

what a load of complete and utter crap, can’t wait for the first multi million pound settlement for the guy who gets fired because, he’s a bit tubby/enjoys a fag/has a drink on a Friday night.

Load a shite – we should just accept that people are people with their own human baggage/life choices and get on with it … or completely have done with it all and hand it over to robots.

Indeed, damn these businesses to hell, for promoting healthier life styles and trying to make money. Who the hell do they think they are??

What about workers who are thick and therefore have lower productivity?

Actually – the “fat people are less productive” thing is by no means new. And until it is characterised as a disability employers are allowed to choose to employ someone else. In my line of work (healthcare) someone who is obese or a smoker would not be our first choice.

one study here

And we should be able to choose employees by ability, motivation and productivity.

Not by Race, Sex or Sexuality.

What about workers who are thick and therefore have lower productivity?

Why would you hire an idiot in the first place?

Good interview? Only candidate? Desperate?

What about workers who are thick…

I’m pretty certain that intelligence has been used as a way to discriminate from certain jobs since forever.

[Devil’s Advocate}So is there much difference between:

“You’re fired. You’re thick and not getting enough work done.”

“You’re fired. You’re fat and not getting enough work done.”

[/Devil’s Advocate}

Not sure that either would be easy things to fire people for. So does tend to alter who one takes on.

Quite right that empoyers should be able to disriminate against fat people.
There is a certain person in our office who is overweight, seriously unfit and always off sick.These things may be related… And it’s the rest of us who pay for it by having to do her job as well as ours when she is off sick.
(I’ve never had a day off sick in 13 years of working and feel entitled to whinge about it. If I’m injured I do overtime, might as well sit at a desk and get paid than sit at home and not, it’s still resting)

Flipping hell. I’d better go back to the 37 hr weeks I’m paid for. As opposed to the 55 hr weeks with 50 miles of riding I have been doing. After all, the 18 stones on the weighing scales says I’m an impossibility. Flipping prejudiced idiots.

The rest of you, as you were.

After all, the 18 stones on the weighing scales says I’m an impossibility.

I don’t think you understand statistics.

Wasn’t commenting on article. Was commenting on some of the comments in this thread which say they’d not employ me based on a visual assessment of my competence.

Well if you were the same on paper and in the interview as a slimmer candidate, it would make sense, according to the article, as fatter people are more likely to work less.

And eat all the biscuits…

Let me get this perfectly clear. You’d like all the fat people on benefits and the thin people in paid employment, even if the at people are smarter and more hard working? Or at least some of them?

You do know that that’s just going to compound the problem of obesity in this country as other studies have shown that crap eating and crap health outcomes are linked to wage/background/attitude? And that working next to a bunch of people with healthy attitudes to exercise and food can nudge someone into behaving better when it comes to food and exercise? And that abandoning fat people and discriminating against them just bites you more in your tax paying ass in the long run?

Short term rewards. Long term fail. No strategic decision making skills obviously.

Well you spend the first 18-22 years of your life trying to make yourself employable. If being healthy was part of that as well, would that be bad?

If businesses started offering incentives for people to be more healthy, would that be bad?

Let me get this perfectly clear. You’d like all the fat people on benefits and the thin people in paid employment, even if the at people are smarter and more hard working? Or at least some of them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Also, from the article in the OP, unhealthy people are between 6-12% less productive. So I’m not sure why you’re saying fat people are smarter and more hard working.

We’ve got a big un in our office, does admin or some such thing. Came through the other day looking for a ‘couple of strong men’ to carry her shopping bags upstairs. What was in them? That’s right, Monster Munch, nothing else, just 4 multipacks of Monster Munch. Not even heavy are they.

@thegreatape well all us fat birds must be like that. No running up the stairs for us a a previously unseen training opportunity.

@realman Had I appreciated what eating the wrong things would do & how long it would take to fix the cock ups I would absolutely do things differently. You are, however, advocating the discrimination of a group of people for being stupid. I was stupid. Now I’m fat. Going to discriminate against dyslexics? Oh wait…
Also, you might want to revisit your literacy skills. I said some not all fat people are smart and productive. Just like some male mountain bikers are gobshites & some are not. Just like some black people are lazy and some are not. Just like some girls are weak and some would kick your ass from here to November given half the chance.

To LouLou, not all 18stoners are unfit (see Rugby World Cup)
Just saying if I were an employer given the choice of two evenly matched candidates in all other respects I would go for the one I think less likely to be taking time off sick through being unfit/fat (being heavy isn’t the same as being unfit/fat)