From the freaks at Freakonomics comes a study that shows fat asses make less money than their skinny-assed coworkers.
And we thought they were broke because they blew their money on Gorditas.
About the only really interesting thing about the abstract is that they researchers seem to have developed a more accurate way of tallying someone’s body composition than simply relying on the ridiculous Body Mass Index (BMI) that has been shoved in everyone’s face for the past decade or so (and which classified the 1997 version of Michael Jordan as “obese”).
Our work addresses an important limitation of the current literature on the economics of obesity. Previous research relied on body weight or BMI for measuring obesity despite the growing agreement in the medical literature that they represent misleading measures of obesity because of their inability to distinguish between body fat and fat-free body mass. Body composition measures used in this paper represent significant improvements over the previously used measures because they allow for the effects of fat and fat free components of body composition to be separately identified.
In other words, there is a difference between different kinds of heavy. More muscular people always get lumped into “overweight” BMI categories because height and weight are not enough to get a clear picture of whether you’re fat or not.
Pax Arcana’s anecdotal evidence to support the above research is as follows: Shortly after shedding 32 pounds (11.8% of total bodyweight), Pax was given a big raise. See? It’s science.
The Wage Effect of Fat [Freakonomics]
I think big raises are just what happen when you leave the newspaper world, and they have nothing to do with weight.
You mean being rewarded for hard work is something that happens at other jobs, too? I thought I’d stumbled into another dimension. I bet once newspapers catch on to the idea, they’ll really boost their quality.
Pause.
Pause.
Bwaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa!
How’d you lose it? Rice cakes?
I quit my reporter job, which reduced my consumption of both fast food and vending machine dinners at 1:30 a.m. And I joined a gym. That’s about it.