Four out of every 100 obese people are likely to be unemployed 'solely because of their weight'

By SHAUN WOOLLER, EXECUTIVE HEALTH EDITOR Published: 23:01, 16 July 2026 | Updated: 23:10, 16 July 2026 Around four out of every 100 obese people are likely to be unemployed solely because of their weight, analysis suggests. The scale of the problem is twice as big as previously thought and is likely to have a 'substantial' economic cost for society, researchers say. Obese people are 'significantly' more likely to be out of work than those of a healthy weight, with the difference partly due to discrimination, they add. The University of York economists, who analysed data from 284,258 people in the UK, now want action to 'challenge biases and promote inclusivity'. The overall employment rate among participants was 75.5 per cent and around one in four were classed as obese, with a body mass index (BMI) over 30. These people tended to have lower employment rates and were less likely to have university degrees than those who were not obese. Traditional analysis found obesity was linked with a 1.8 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of being in work. However, further analysis that better controlled for confounding factors found it was associated with a 4.2 percentage point reduction. Obese people are 'significantly' more likely to be out of work than those of a healthy weight, with the difference party due to discrimination, researchers say. Lead author Dr Aharon Katz, who presented his findings at the International Congress on Obesity in Mexico, said: 'Tackling obesity isn't just a health imperative, it's an opportunity to boost economic productivity. 'Because obesity affects workers in the prime years of their working lives, it may have profound effects on their working careers, individual health and societal costs. 'These findings call for a targeted and nuanced approach to tackling the negative effects of obesity on employment and to mitigate the substantial economic losses of soaring obesity rates. 'Policy interventions and workplace initiatives should aim to raise awareness, challenge biases, and promote inclusivity.' Obesity was linked to a larger fall in employment among men. Dr Katz said further research is needed to determine why obesity appears to have a stronger employment effect among men than women. He added: 'These contrasting findings point to different labour-market consequences of obesity for men and women. 'The differences may reflect variations in occupational sorting, health-related work limitations, employer discrimination, or broader social roles that influence employment decisions differently by gender.' Previous studies have found that obesity is linked with higher unemployment, greater sickness absence, and lower wages, costing the UK an estimated £31 billion a year in lost productivity alone, with a total annual economic and societal cost of around £126 billion. Observational studies have struggled to establish causal links due to confounding, such as low levels of education impacting on both weight and employment, and reverse causation, where being unemployed might also increase the chance of having a higher BMI through stress, loss of income, or lower physical activity. To isolate the effects of BMI on paid employment, researchers used a more advanced analytical technique called Mendelian randomisation, which uses a person's genetic predisposition to higher BMI. Using the more advanced statistical approach, the researchers found that obesity was associated with a much smaller reduction in employment among women, but a substantially larger reduction among men. For women, the estimated reduction in employment fell from 4.7 per cent to 2.1 per cent, while for men it increased from 3.9 per cent to 6.6 per cent.