BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

stereotypes give way to stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against
obese persons in multiple domains of living, including the workplace,
health care facilities, educational institutions, the mass media, and even in
close interpersonal relationships. Perhaps because weight stigma remains a
socially acceptable form of bias, negative attitudes and stereotypes toward
obese persons have been frequently reported by employers, coworkers,
teachers, physicians, nurses, medical students, dietitians, psychologists,
peers, friends, family members,1–4 and even among children aged as
young as 3 years.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based
solely on their membership in a certain group or category. Discrimination
is the actual behavior towards members of another group. It involves
excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are
available to other groups.
There are two types of discrimination: direct discrimination and
indirect discrimination.
Direct discrimination is pretty straightforward in most cases. It
happens when a person is dealt with unfairly on the basis of one of the
grounds (compared with someone who doesn’t have that ground) and in
one of the areas covered by the act.
Examples:
Somebody is asked at a job interview whether he/she has
children. When he/she told the interviewer that has four children, she
makes a remark about he/she needing a lot of time off work if they’re sick,
and says he/she won’t be suitable for the position.
An Aboriginal woman wanting to rent a house. When she arrives
to inspect a house she is told it’s already been taken. The woman arranges
for a non-Aboriginal friend to enquire about the house. She rings, is told
it’s still available, looks at the house and is offered a lease. This is the
third time this woman tried to rent a house through this agency. In spite of
the fact she has a good tenancy record, each time she phone, she is told a
house is available, and each time she meet one of the agents, she is told
it’s been rented already.
When a woman advises her employer that she is pregnant, she
was moved to a lower-paying job out of the public view, because clients
„don’t want to look at people in her condition”.
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