Hospital in weight row after hiring policy BANS obese job applicants

A Texas hospital is under fire for banning job applicants from employment for being obese.



The Citizens Medical Center in the south eastern town of Victoria requires all potential employees to have a body mass index – a formula used to determine fat – of less than 35, according to its CEO.



The figure translates to a weight of 210lbs for someone who is 5ft 5in, and ensures employees fit with a 'specific mental projection of the job of a healthcare professional', the hospital chief, David Brown, said.



Employment policy: The Citizens Medical Center in Victoria, Texas requires all potential employees to have a BMI of less than 35

The Texas Tribune reports job applicants are screened by a physician 'to assess their fitness for work' as part of the hiring process.



Mr Brown told the newspaper the regulation is based largely on 'appearance', rather than fears of high insurance premiums for potentially unhealthy employees.



'The majority of our patients are over 65, and they have expectations that cannot be ignored in terms of personal appearance,' he said.



'We have the ability as an employer to characterize our process and to have a policy that says what’s best for our business and for our patients.'



Discrimination? Critics say the hospital is wrongfully turning away talented applicants as a result of the policy

Existing workers who become obese during employment are not terminated, he said.



But applicants have been turned away as a result of the policy, implemented more than a year ago.



'We have some people who are applicants and they know the requirements, and we try and help them get there but they're not interested,' he said. 'So that's fine, they can go work somewhere else.'

THE 'BALONEY MASS INDEX': WHY BMI CAN GIVE FALSE READINGS

The Body Mass Index – the formula usually used to determine fat – drastically underestimated how many people should regard themselves as unhealthily overweight or obese.

A study conducted by the Weill Cornell Medical School and the New York state health commissioner concluded that 39 per cent of Americans were being classified as overweight on the basis of their BMI when they were actually obese. Researchers calculated the BMI – weight in kg divided by height in metres squared – of nearly 1,400 adult patients at a private health clinic.

They then compared the results with those of a more sophisticated measurement, a blood test combined with a Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA) scan, which measures a person’s body fat, muscle mass and bone density.

The comparison found BMI wrongly classified half of the women, and one in four men.

While only 26 per cent of the patients were classed as obese according to BMI, 65 per cent of them fell into that category when measured with the DXA scan.

Study co-author Dr Eric Braverman said BMI should be called the ‘baloney mass index’ because it was so inaccurate.

Texas does not have laws that prohibit weight discrimination in hiring, although it does prohibit discrimination based on race, age or religion.



But critics say the hospital is misguided by judging health based on BMI alone, as the number does not distinguish between muscle and fat.



Others say employers could miss out on talented candidates as a result of the policy.

Peggy Howell, public relations director for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, told the Tribune: 'This is discrimination plain and simple. So the field of medicine is no longer an option for people of larger body size? What a waste of talent.'

It's not the first time the Citizen Medical Center has been caught up in allegations of discrimination.



In 2007, a memo Brown sent expressing a 'sense of disgust' he felt that more 'Middle-Eastern-born' physicians were demanding leadership roles at the institution prompted claims of racial discrimination, the Tribune reports.



The note became the basis of an ongoing litigation Brown is not at liberty to discuss.

While such a hiring policy is unheard of in the medical field, a 2010 study of 2,000 people by Slimming World found overweight people lose out in the workplace because employers assume they will be lazy.



In the poll of 200 bosses, a quarter of men said they would turn down a candidate purely on their weight and one in 10 admitted they had already done so.

