Workers' comp boards rule for obese workers wanting weight-loss surgery

A cook at an Indiana restaurant suffered a job-related back injury, and a workers' compensation board said the employer must pay for a medical procedure. What makes this news?

The procedure was weight-loss surgery.

Also this summer, the Oregon Supreme Court said an employer must pay for surgery for an employee who suffered a workplace knee injury — not for knee replacement but for a weight-loss procedure.

Decisions like those are causing employment law attorneys and human resource consultants to send an alert: Be careful about hiring obese people; they could cost you a lot more in workers' comp or insurance.

As if extremely heavy people didn't have enough cares already. Now there could be another strike against them in the job market, according to an article in Workforce Magazine, a publication for human resource professionals.

Anonymous surveys of hiring officials consistently have revealed a bias against hiring overweight job applicants. Books have been written about how appearance counts in the workplace. It's not a bias that is readily admitted, of course. And rarely would someone be told outright that he or she wasn't hired or promoted because of weight. But even if they were, they probably couldn't make a discrimination case stick.

With exceedingly rare exceptions at isolated city or state levels, there are no laws banning discrimination against fat people, unless the discrimination falls into a limited area covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. An employer is perfectly free to hire svelte people instead — for appearance, health, financial or any other personal reason.

As employers strain to cope with higher health insurance costs, seriously overweight people (as well as cigarette smokers) may be finding it even harder to land a job. And, if they're already employed, they may be feeling extra pressure to participate in weight-loss or smoking-cessation programs at work. In some cases, the financial incentive is strong: lower health care premiums.

The fact is that obesity (like smoking) is linked to higher incidence of health problems and higher medical expenses. Obese people might call it a gross invasion of privacy and personal choice to have employers so involved in their weight. But this personal "freedom" is outweighed by employers' pocketbook choices.

Nowadays, when employers talk about cutting the fat, they may mean it literally.

Diane Stafford is the workplace and careers columnist at the Kansas City Star.