New York City passes bill banning weight discrimination in housing and employment
New York City has officially passed a bill banning discrimination based on a person's weight.
On Thursday, the City Council green-lit the measure that would make it illegal to discriminate against height and weight in housing, employment, and public accommodations.
This means people will no longer face prejudice for their weight when it comes to interviewing for a job or buying a home, for example.
The measure is expected to be signed into law by New York's mayor later this month and received significant backing, passing 44-5.
“It’s not only protecting people in the workplace from this or in getting apartments, but it’s also about changing culture,” said Shaun Abreu, a New York City Councilman, and the lead sponsor of the bill.
Councilman Abreu said he became more aware of the issue when he gained more than 40lb (18.1kg) during lockdown and saw a shift in how he was treated.
"They're being discriminated against with no recourse and society saying that's perfectly fine," he continued.
New York City is only the seventh city to take action on the issue.
The other six cities and one state to have laws protecting Americans from weight discrimination are Binghamton, New York; Madison, Wisconsin; Urbana, Illinois; Washington, DC; San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California; and Michigan.Weight discrimination is considered a widespread problem in the US, particularly for women and women of colour.
Women considered obese earned $5.25 (around £4) less per hour than women considered normal weight, according to a Vanderbilt University study.
Weight discrimination in the UK
Most of the research and legal information on weight discrimination in the UK focuses on it as a workplace problem.
A LinkedIn study from 2018 said that in a survey of 4,000 UK workers, those classed as obese according to their BMI reported earning on average £1,940 less per year than those with a healthy- range BMI.
A quarter of those overweight and one in three who were obese said they believed they had missed out on a promotion due to their size, and more than half reported feeling left out of their teams.Obesity has often been described as "a public health concern" and a myriad of measures have been considered or implemented to tackle the issue, including a watchdog-approved weight loss injection.
When it comes to weight discrimination in the workplace, there is currently no UK law protecting Britons.
They would have to have been subjected to unfair treatment for a protected characteristic defined by section 4 of the Equality Act 2010, which includes age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, race, pregnancy, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
Therefore, an obese person would only become protected by UK law from discrimination when their weight is such that they are considered disabled.