Dollars and Pounds

Women who were obese as teens earn significantly less money than their Leaner peers.

That is the conclusion Dartmouth pediatrician James Sargent and economics professor David Blanch flower reached after analyzing a study that tracked 12,536 English, Scottish, and Welsh women from their teens into adulthood.

After taking into account such variables as the subjects' IQ, race, and social class, the researchers found that a girl's weight at age 16 directly affects her later earning power. The heaviest ten percent of obese teen girls earned 7.4 percent less than the other young women in the study. The heaviest one percent of obese young women earned almost 11.5 percent less.

Diets don't seem to help. Severely overweight young women showed a marked decline in income even if they later lost the extra pounds. According to the researchers, how a woman looks when she enters the job market seems to be the key in determining her earnings.

The study also reveals a double standard between the sexes: overweight teenage boys experience no comparable economic disadvantages. "IFyou're a man, it makes no difference," states Sargent. "A successful 40-to-50-year old man is not necessarily lean, but if you look at successful women in the work place, they're likely to be very thin."

He worries that many young women, already sensitive to such cultural biases, will incorrectly perceive themselves as overweight and diet inappropriately in their drive for economic success.

"Their concept of obesity does not relate to the medical one," says Sargent. "They may think of themselves as obese when they're really normal or on the thin side."