Too Fat To Work: Overweight Woman Has Applied For 850 Jobs

London, England – Twenty-five-year-old Sam Brattle has never had a job. The chronically unemployed woman has applied for 850 job opportunities and had 50 interviews at bars, offices, child care facilities, and call centers without a single success.

Many jobless individuals have had difficulty finding work in recent years. The shaky, weak global economy makes employers cautious to create new positions and hire, opting instead to absorb the loss of laborers and at times doubling up work for those still employed. Often jobs that are advertised are filled from within a company.

But Brattle feels her situation of rejection is due to discrimination. She assesses her bad luck with not getting hired has to do with being nearly 300 pounds and a size 26, saying she’s just “too fat to work,” according to The Mirror. At five feet four inches tall Brattle’s BMI defines her as severely obese.

“Label me a ‘benefit fatty’. I don’t care, because I’m proud and happy with my size.” Brattle’s been on jobless benefits, receiving a jobseeker’s allowance of £71 a week (close to $108 US), since completing classroom assistant and child-care courses in 2008. Therefore Brattle has no choice but to continue living with her parents.

Brattle primarily blames her excessive weight on hormonal problems and negative comfort eating habits from childhood. Dietitians have assigned her diet and exercise regimes, but Brattle admits she’s never been able to adhere to healthy eating plans.

Instead of making more of an effort to lose the weight Brattle is championing for the rights of overweight people, finding the situation “unfair and wrong.” Negative attitudes applied to the obese should change. She accuses employers of finding any excuse to not hire a big person. Interviews go as far as telling her she has no experience and can’t get a job without it.

Do you think those who are overweight are discriminated against when applying for a job? Do you feel obese people are victims of discrimination?

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