Women pay more than men for haircuts and dry cleaning. Now, a new study has found that they also pay more for being obese.While a man racks up $2,646 annually in extra expenses if he is obese, a woman’s obesity costs her $4,879, almost twice as much.
Much of the gender gap is due to lower wages for obese women, who earn less relative to similar working women who are not obese, according to the analysis, by researchers at George Washington University.
The report is one of the first to calculate the economic toll of obesity on the individual, including both direct costs, like medical expenses, and indirect expenses, like lost wages and reduced work productivity. (The study did not account for many other personal consumer costs, like clothing, because data are not available.)
Based on a median annual wage for women of $32,450 in 2009, the report found that obese women who work full time earn $1,855 less annually than nonobese women, a 6 percent reduction. By contrast, studies have found that the wages of obese men are not significantly different from those of normal-weight men.
“One possible explanation is that there is more discrimination against women when they are obese than against men, that obesity is perceived differently for women than for men,” said Avi Dor, director of the health economics program at George
