E. Katarina Vermann

Michael T. Owyang

English

Research Papers in Economics

wages
Worth Your Weight? 
Re-examining the Link 
between Obesity and Wages
By Michael T. Owyang and E. Katarina Vermann
paychecks
S
ince 1960, the percentage of American 
adults who are overweight or obese has 
risen from 46 percent to 74 percent.
1  The 
clinically overweight are those with a body 
mass index (BMI)
2 between 25 and 30; the 
clinically obese have a BMI greater than 30.  
Not only are heavier individuals at greater 
risk for coronary heart disease, hypertension 
and other health problems, but, according to 
obesity specialists Rebecca Puhl and Chelsea 
Heuer, are “highly stigmatized … [and 
this] weight bias translates into inequities 
in employment settings, health-care facili-
ties and educational institutions … leaving 
[them] vulnerable to social injustice, unfair 
treatment and impaired quality of life.” 
3
If such a stigma exists, does this mean that 
your weight can affect your wage?
Although wage penalties may exist because 
of stigma, they may also exist because of 
differences in productivity or perceived 
productivity.  Overweight or obese individu-
als, for example, might receive lower wages 
if employers believe that their weight could 
affect their health and, thereby, their produc-
tivity.  Others contend that—because weight 
is tied to appearance—an overweight/obesity 
wage penalty is the flip side of the beauty 
premium.  Finally, wage differentials might 
reflect differences in socioeconomic status 
and education, as the rates of obesity/over-
weight are higher among groups with lower 
socioeconomic status.
The Obesity Penalty?
Economic studies relating wages and 
weight suggest that obese women are less 
likely to be employed, relative to “normal” 
weight individuals (BMI of 20 to 25).  Among 
the employed, heavier women tend to earn 
less.  These penalties have not only increased 
over the past few decades, but continue to 
increase as women age. 
The wage penalty for women also varies 
by race.  Economist John Cawley estimates 
that overweight and obese white women 
earn 4.5 and 11.9 percent less, respectively, 
than normal weight white women.  Among 
African-American and Hispanic women, on 
the other hand, obese women earn between 
6 and 8 percent less than those of the same 
race with a BMI under 25; there is no penalty 
for black or Hispanic women who are only 
overweight.  A similar study by economists 
Christian Gregory and Christopher Ruhm 
found that the wages of white women peak at 
a BMI of 22.5 (well within the normal range), 
while wages for black women peak at a BMI 
of 26.1 (just above the normal range).  
Unlike the findings for women, which 
consistently indicate the presence of a  
weight-wage penalty, the results for men are 
 
0 20 40 60 80
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
% Body Fat (BF)
Body Mass Index (BMI)
I
N
C
O
M
E
-
T
O
-
P
O
V
E
R
T
Y
 
R
A
T
I
O
BODY SIZE (BMI OR % BF)
Women’s Income and Body Size
Figure 1
0 20 40 60 80
3.2
3.0
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
% Body Fat (BF)
Body Mass Index (BMI)
I
N
C
O
M
E
-
T
O
-
P
O
V
E
R
T
Y
 
R
A
T
I
O
BODY SIZE (BMI OR % BF)
Men’s Income and Body Size
Figure 2
For the poverty index in the charts, a value below 1 indicates that the family’s income is below the poverty threshold.  
(For example, a value of 0.87 would indicate that the family’s income is 87 percent of the poverty threshold.)  A value 
above 1 indicates that the family’s income is above the poverty threshold.  (A value of 1.87 would indicate that the 
family’s income is 187 percent of the poverty threshold.)
SOURCE: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. 
more ambiguous.  Some studies found that 
underweight and obese white males earn 
less than their normal weight counterparts, 
while overweight white males earn more.  
Not only is the relationship between earn-
ings and weight inconsistent across weight 
categories, but inconsistent across races.  
To illustrate, a 2004 study estimated that 
obese Hispanic males earn less than normal 
weight Hispanic males, but obese African-
American males earn more than normal 
weight black males.  Other studies found that 
overweight/obese status rarely affects hourly 
wages for males but does decrease the likeli-
hood of being employed for all males except 
African-Americans.
4
Is BMI the Wrong Measure?
The apparent discrepancy between the 
genders, however, may be misleading.   
Most studies that examine the relationship  
 
16   The Regional Economist  |  October 2011
© SHUttERStOCkbetween weight and wages use BMI, which 
categorizes individuals based solely on weight 
and height.  The medical literature, however, 
argues that BMI is problematic because it 
is largely arbitrary:  It emerged because the 
insurance industry wanted a measure for the 
mortality risk associated with weight gain.  As 
such, the “normal” range for BMI was defined 
because of its correlation with the lowest risk 
of death (based on life insurance tables).
5  Fur-
ther, BMI is a poor proxy for excess fat, as the 
index provides no information on body shape 
and has no way to distinguish body fat from 
lean body mass. 
In a study last year, economists Joanna 
Parks, Aaron Smith and Julian Alston 
recommended using a measurement of body 
fat that takes into account weight, height 
and body composition, rather than using 
BMI.  According to these economists’ mea-
sures, BMI overestimates the prevalence of 
underweight, normal weight and overweight 
males, while underestimating the prevalence 
of obese males because BMI understates 
differences in body fat.  Among women, BMI 
overestimates the prevalence of underweight 
and normal weight women, while underes-
timating the prevalence of overweight and 
obese women.  As a result, approximately 
60 percent of men and 45 percent of women 
are misclassified into weight categories when 
using BMI as opposed to using percent body 
fat or percent fat-free mass.  This finding 
indicates that national health statistics are 
likely to underestimate the true prevalence of 
people who are overweight or obese.
Alternative to BMI Changes Results
The accompanying figures show the 
relationship between an individual’s weight 
and household income-to-poverty ratio using 
data from the National Health and Nutri-
tion Examination Survey.  The panels depict 
how the weight-wage relationship changes 
depending on the measure used.  
Figure 1 shows the relationship between 
income-to-poverty ratios and both BMI and 
percent body fat for women.  This relation-
ship is more pronounced when using BMI.  
Regardless of the measure used, there 
remains a negative relationship between body 
size and economic status.  Since the income-
to-poverty ratio is a proxy for socioeconomic 
status, this finding may imply that studies 
attributing a wage penalty to a woman’s body 
weight may be picking up on unmeasurable 
differences in social class. 
Figure 2 shows a clear, positive relation-
ship between higher body mass and higher 
income-to-poverty ratios for men.  For body 
fat, however, the relationship with wages is 
much less apparent.  Instead, there appears to 
be very little association between economic 
standing and body fat.  Regardless, Figure 2 
suggests that BMI may overestimate the rela-
tionship between wages and weight, or that 
the estimated correlation between wages and 
weight may be spurious.
Because of the potential problems with using 
BMI as a measure of obesity, a 2010 study by 
economists Roy Wada and Erdal Tekin used 
percent body fat and percent fat-free mass 
to examine the weight-wage gap.  This study 
found that increases in body fat reduce wages 
but that increases in fat-free mass increase 
wages.  For example, a one kilogram increase 
in body fat was associated with approximately 
a 1 percent decrease in wages for all groups 
except black males.  At the same time, a one 
kilogram increase in fat-free mass increases 
wages between 1.4 and 1.8 percent for males 
and between 0.3 to 0.5 percent for females.
Summary
Studies that use BMI as a measure of body 
fat find inconsistent evidence for an obesity 
wage penalty both across genders and races.  
However, later studies that examine wages 
and weight controlling for body composi-
tion find that, regardless of gender and race, 
excess weight due to fat is statistically related 
to lower wages, but excess weight due to 
muscle is statistically related to higher wages, 
regardless of occupation.  These findings 
indicate that there is, in fact, a consistent 
wage penalty for body fat and a wage pre-
mium for muscle, but discrimination might 
not necessarily be the cause.  While the 
results support the notion that appearance is 
an important determinant of wages, the aver-
age wage differentials could exist if employers 
believed health and productivity were related 
and/or if high body fat were taken as a signal 
of possible long-term poor health. 
Michael T. Owyang is an economist and  
E. Katarina Vermann is a research associate, 
both at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.  
For more on Owyang’s work, see http://research.
stlouisfed.org/econ/owyang/  
The Regional Economist  |  www.stlouisfed.org   17
 ENdNOTES  
 1 See www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/hestat/obesity_
adult_07_08/obesity_adult_07_08.pdf
 2 Calculated as mass / height2.  Mass is in kilo-
grams, and height is in meters.
 3 See Puhl and Heuer.
 4 Nonetheless, Cawley’s findings are attributable to 
unobserved heterogeneity: Lighter white males 
have more human capital than heavier white 
males, while heavier black males have more  
human capital than lighter black males.
 5 See Parks, Smith and Alston. 
REFERENCES
Burkhauser, Richard V.; and Cawley, John.  “Beyond 
BMI: The Value of More Accurate Measures of 
Fatness and Obesity in Social Science Research,” 
Journal of Health Economics, March 2008, Vol. 27, 
No. 2, pp. 519-29.
Cawley, John.  “The Impact of Obesity on Wages.”  
Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2004, Vol. 39, 
No. 2, pp. 451-74.
Gregory, Christian A.; and Ruhm, Christopher J.  
“Where does the Wage Penalty Bite?” in Michael 
Grossman and Naci H. Mocan, eds., Economic 
Aspects of Obesity.  National Bureau of Economic 
Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
2011.
Han, E.; Norton, E.C.; and Stearns, S.C.  “Weight 
and Wages: Fat Versus Lean Paychecks.”  Health 
Economics, May 2009, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 535-48.
Parks, Joanna C.; Smith, Aaron d.; and Alston, 
Julian M.  “Quantifying Obesity in Economic 
Research: How Misleading Is the Body Mass 
Index?”  Working Paper No. 61841, Agricultural 
and Applied Economics Association, 2010.
Puhl, Rebecca M.; and Heuer, Chelsea A.   
“The Stigma of Obesity: A Review and Update.”   
Obesity Research, 2009, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 941-64.  
Wada, Roy; and Tekin, Erdal.  “Body Composition 
and Wages,” Economics and Human Biology, July 
2010, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 242-54.
These findings indicate 
that there is, in fact, a 
consistent wage penalty 
for body fat and a wage 
premium for muscle, but 
discrimination might not 
necessarily be the cause. 

Worth your weight? re-examining the link between obesity and wages

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