The Checkup: Being Obese Hurts Job Prospects, Study Says

• Say it ain’t so. A new study found that being obese might hurt you in the workplace. It found that for women, the larger your waistline the tougher time you might have landing a job. And once you have a job, you might be at a disadvantage in terms of raises and promotions. The study used undergraduate students in New Zealand who played the role of “employers.” (Researchers said that even though the students weren’t actually part of the workforce, the underlying biases are the same, so it doesn’t matter.) Then, photos of the same women before and after weight loss surgery were assigned to fake resumes with similar skill sets and qualifications. When the employers rated the candidates on measures like starting salary and likelihood of being hired, researchers noticed a pattern: Those with the bigger waistlines—the “before” photos—received the lowest ratings. Reports HealthDay: “The more attractive the raters considered themselves, the stronger the weight bias they displayed, researchers found. Having personality traits such as authoritarianism also was associated with being more biased.”

• Here’s one way to get more nutrients in your body: engineer the food you eat to have more to begin with. That’s just what one guy is trying to do with bananas.

• If you could, would you shop around for doctors based on how much they charge for their services? One San Francisco company is helping consumers do exactly that. Bloomberg calls it “Travelocity for health care.”