Does Being Fat Keep You Poor?

There's a very famous phrase that goes,

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

And to some extent, that is true.

Beauty is subjective depending on who you are, what culture you're living in,

and what time you're even living in.

But that phrase is also a little bit disingenuous

because we're also living within a beauty standard.

And if you fail to meet that, whether that be via your size,

your looks, even your fashion, you can be punished both socially and financially.

And it's that intersection that we're going to talk about today.

Hey all, I'm Kara Perez, founder of Kara Explores Money,

author of Money for Change.

I want to talk about what makes a person hot,

as well as how hotness impacts our money.

Now, just a little disclaimer at the top,

we are going to be talking about looks,

and specifically we're going to be talking about weight.

So, if that is an issue for you,

please feel free to skip this video.

I'm also going to be using the term BMI in this video,

which I know some people consider to be an out-of-date term.

I'm mostly using it

as a catch-all phrase that's just going to make this video flow a lot

easier and make it easier to understand the broader topics we're talking about.

Nearly 42% of American adults are considered obese,

which is up from 30% in the year 2000.

And while talking about weight in the United States is often discussed through a

lens of health,

today we're going to talk about it through the lens of money.

First, let's start with a little lingo.

What is BMI?

It stands for body mass index,

and it's one way of determining how much body fat an individual has.

BMI is just one way of determining this,

and there is some debate in the medical community around

if it's the best tool to do

so.

Because the economic data tells us that obese people, and particularly obese women,

are less likely to be employed overall,

and those who are employed are less likely to be higher-paid positions.

And in fact, the wage penalty

that you experience for being obese in the United States varies by race.

Obese white women, for example, earn 4.5% and 11.9% less, respectively,

than normal-weight white women.

Compare that to obese African-American women and Hispanic women,

who earn between 6

and 8% less than women with a a of 25

or lower.

A similar study by economists Christian Gregory

and Christopher Rumm found

that the wages of white women peak at a BMI of 22.5,

which is well within the normal range,

while wages for black women peak at a BMI of 26.1,

just above the normal range.

But this does not really apply in the same way to men.

Some studies have found

that obese white men earn less than normal weight white men,

but other studies have found

that the size of a white man doesn't really impact his earnings.

A 2004 study found

that while some overweight Hispanic males earn less than normal weight Hispanic males,

that did not hold true in the African-American male community where it was actually

found that heavier African-American males earned more than normal weight African-American males.

That tells us something that every single woman watching this video already knows.

Women are held to a stricter beauty standard than men are,

and that costs us money both on the spending side of things,

but also on our earning potential side of things.

Let's zoom out for a second here

because when it comes to talking about weight,

beauty, and money in the United States,

we have to understand

that we have to look at this through several different lenses.

We have to look at this through the lens of gender and weight,

but we also have to look at this through the lens of class.

Because obesity in the United States is heavily stratified by class.

The 2001 to 2007 California Health Interview Survey found

that obesity increased among lower-income households,

but it did not increase among higher-income households.

Another study that spanned 2005 to 2008 found

that there was no significant trend between income

and education for men,

but there was one for women.

Women with college degrees are far less likely to be obese than women without

college degrees.

And when you consider that since 2000, who is enrolling in college,

like the demographics of people enrolling in college,

have changed very significantly from the previous, let's say, 50 years,

this is something worth noting.

College enrollment rate in 2022 was higher for 18- to 24-year-olds who were Asian

at 61% than those who were white at 41% two

or more races 36% black 36% Hispanic 33% Pacific Islander 27%

and American Indian/Alaska Native at 26%.

Now let's take a look at the household wealth of these same groups.

In 2021 Asian households had a median net worth of $320,900 compared with $250,400

for white households.

The median net worth of Hispanic households was $48,700

and black households to see how things like class

and education play into the shape

that our literal bodies take

and the shape that your body takes

then plays into how much money you're likely to earn in the workplace.

Now the United States is a country with what seems like ever-increasing wealth disparity,

but we are also a country

that especially in the last 6-7 years has experienced extreme rises in our cost

of living.

And that means that the average American's dollar has to go a lot further,

which means a lot of things

that were once considered kind of normal staples of life have become luxury goods.

And health and fitness and beauty fall squarely into that.

Let's take for example the Pilates princess.

Now this is a term you may have heard,

especially if you're someone who is chronically online like me.

Pilates is widely considered to be an expensive way of working out

and it is most closely associated with thin white women of means.

It's one of the most popular styles of workouts among the influencer class

as well and we know

that the algorithms favor thin white women.

I think Pilates is an excellent example of how working out itself has become

a signifier of class

and also to an extent a luxury good on its own.

You can't afford to take a $45 Pilates class at 10:00 a.m. in the

morning if you work a 9-5,

let alone if you're someone who works multiple jobs.

In fact, any type of workout is increasingly becoming a luxury good in our

current K-shaped economy.

Take for example the recent loss of the ACA subsidies.

Those subsidies lapsing means that everyone's health insurance just got a lot more expensive.

My own health insurance went up by $200 a month.

That is now $200 a month

that I can't put towards anything else like a gym membership

or a Pilates class.

And it's interesting when you think about the fact

that Americans are also already spending a ton of money to look good in

the categories of things like clothing

and makeup and beauty treatments.

According to a study from Groupon,

American women spend an average of $3,756 a year on beauty treatments.

Haircuts, makeup, and skin care are the top three spending categories.

Now, that's the average American woman, so that's spanning across races and ages.

LendingTree actually did an interesting report that broke that down by age.

Spending rises with younger generations to an average of $2,670 a year among millennials

and $2,048 among Gen Z's.

Among generations, this spending is on skin, 30%, and hair care, 30%.

And according to a study from Advanced Dermatology,

one in six Americans admit to spending more on beauty

and wellness than they can actually afford,

which means people are actually going into debt to look good.

And according to 2023 data from the BLS,

households average an annual spend of $655 on women's apparel,

while they only spend $406 on men's apparel.

Now, all of this is actual hard dollars leaving your bank account just

so that you can meet society's beauty standard,

but I would also argue

that the bigger cost

that we all pay is the near constant insecurity.

There is pressure to always look pulled together.

There is pressure to be getting the latest beauty treatments

and keeping up with changing beauty standards.

The idea that feeling insecure about your looks is just a permanent state of

being for anyone,

but particularly women in the US, is a culturally accepted idea.

And in my opinion, that is the burden that is the heaviest to bear.

And I think it's a burden

that many people are feeling right now

because our current job market is

so garbage.

People feel intense pressure to look their best

as they're interviewing for jobs

because jobs are harder

and harder to come by.

In fact, the US only added 181,000 jobs in 2025.

For the entire year, the US, the world's biggest economy,

only created 181,000 new jobs.

That makes 2025 the weakest year of job growth since 2020

and the weakest non-recessionary job market since 2003.

Unemployment was 4.3% in January 2026,

which is slightly down from the 4.4% it was at in December 2025,

but anyone who is applying for a job knows

that those numbers don't reflect the actual physical pain many job searchers are seeking

right now.

Because so many jobs out there are either outright scams

or are part-time work,

or maybe full-time but don't come with benefits.

All of that creates further stress on your household income.

So, if jobs are scarce

and we know that looking better is more likely to not only land you

a job,

but land you a better paying job,

that is very intense social pressure and economic pressure to invest in your looks.

And pretty privilege is a very real thing.

Here in the United States, we operate under a Eurocentric beauty standard.

That means that we, generally speaking, consider people who are whiter, thinner,

and have smaller noses, smaller lips,

and smaller bodies to be more attractive than those who do not fall into

those categories.

And you see that reflected all the time.

And you can see

that people are doing all sorts of things to their bodies to fall into

those categories.

Nose jobs and boob jobs are very common plastic surgeries

that women undergo to change their appearance.

And with the rise of GLP-1s,

we are seeing more

and more people get on them in order to become physically smaller.

Now, I want to stop here for just a quick second and say,

if you're someone who's gotten a nose job,

or you're someone who's on a GLP-1,

I'm not saying this from a place of judgment

and I'm not saying you should stop doing those things.

Because the numbers tell us that by doing those things,

regardless of what your personal health needs may be,

those things are going to likely net you more money at work.

So, purely from an economic standpoint, I'm like, that makes a lot of sense.

I get it.

Because there are multiple studies

that show us that physically attractive people earn more money.

One study shows that physically attractive people earn 10 to 15% more than their

plainer colleagues.

And that the beauty gap actually starts in childhood with beautiful children attracting more

attention and developing more confidence than their quote plainer peers.

Quick side note here,

I am rewatching Mad Men

and an ongoing theme throughout the entire seven seasons is

that Don gets stuff simply

because he's good looking.

Don outright lies to people.

He drinks too much which results in poor workplace decisions.

And he is endlessly forgiven explicitly because of how attractive people find him.

The show on numerous occasions goes out of its way to show how Don's

life is improved or how he escapes consequences

because of how good looking he is.

And Don himself is actually frequently surprised at how he continuously fails upwards.

Like there are numerous close-ups of Don being like, "Wow,

I didn't expect that to go my way."

But it does because he's a cutie patootie.

I know it's a fictional show,

but it does demonstrate pretty privilege in real time.

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

pretty privilege is not just about how you physically look,

but it's also about your class.

Because if you can signal that you have money,

people are more likely to treat you better.

And people with disposable income are also more likely to be considered conventionally attractive

because people with disposable income can do things like pay for a gym membership

or pay for Botox

or have access to fresh healthy food

or the ability to exercise.

Similarly, if you can dress yourself in designer clothing

and then go shopping at the bougie grocery store,

simply being seen in these places in these clothes can win you favor with

people.

Even if your face or body doesn't necessarily meet their individual standard of hotness,

you are able to use money to buy things

that convey a level of success,

and that convey a level of confidence, and people respond to that.

A study out of the University of Sussex studied the human brain

and found that certain parts of our brains light up

when we are speaking to confident people.

And that brain activity programs us to value

and trust the opinions of people

that we deem as confident more than people we deem

as unconfident.

And that's not where the pretty privilege ends.

Literally, if you're hot,

you are less likely to be arrested

and less likely to be found guilty in a court of law.

Let us never forget the hot felon.

Now, since we know

that people deemed pretty

and deemed thin are more likely to be hired,

more likely to earn more money,

and more likely to be treated well by society,

you may turn around and say like, "Okay, well,

obviously there's not only the social pressure,

but the economic sense in investing in our looks."

But humans are complex beings,

and so we also unfortunately socially judge people who do make investments into their

beauty if we deem them to be either ill-done

or too much.

Stop me if you've ever heard this before.

Well, she's really high-maintenance.

That is a disparaging phrase

that people use very commonly to describe a woman who invests too much in

her own appearance.

Socially, we judge people

as vain or flighty

or stupid or too self-involved

if we think that they are spending too much time on their physical appearance.

But on the flip side,

think about how we talk about heavier people in pop culture.

The language that we use around heavier people in the United States is downright

mean,

often using words like lazy

or disgusting or they just don't seem to care about themselves.

And we also judge if you're trying to change a specific part of yourself.

I'm going to use Botox

as an example here

because the conversation around particularly women getting Botox is an incredibly nuanced topic,

but it's also one where people get really heated really quickly.

If you're someone who decides to get Botox,

you can be accused of being everything from anti-feminist to being shallow.

But, if you're someone who doesn't get Botox,

you can be accused of being ugly and not caring about your own appearance.

All of this makes the beauty standard truly impossible to meet.

We define beauty very narrowly, and if you're seen as trying too hard,

we judge you just

as harshly as if you're seen to be not trying hard enough.

I think a really good recent example of how we talk about women in

the public eye is Claire Danes.

Claire Danes has a very long and storied acting history.

She's probably best well known in recent years for her work on Homeland,

and more recently the show The Beast Within Me.

You do not have to go very far to find criticism of her look

on both of these shows.

It seems like Claire Danes has had minimal, if any, Botox work done,

which means that she still has quite a bit of movement in her face,

and people are mean about that.

And, I think a good example of this is the way

that people criticize both Nicole Kidman for getting way too much Botox

and having a frozen face,

and the way that people criticize Claire Danes for seemingly not getting Botox

and having too much of an expressive face.

It's like, what do you want from us?

What is the standard?

If Claire Danes is too expressive

and Nicole Kidman can't move her face at all,

like, how much Botox is the correct amount of Botox?

And, who gets to decide that?

All of this just goes to show

that the beauty mandate

that we have set for ourselves

and that we continually reinforce is truly impossible to meet.

And finally, I just want to give a shout-out to the disabled community

and the chronically ill community,

of which I'm a member.

I have Crohn's disease, and my body truly is garbage.

I was literally taken down for 3 days over the holiday break by a

glass of eggnog.

I took my dairy pill, I cut that eggnog with almond milk,

and I still felt like absolute garbage for 3 days.

And, that's just cuz my digestive system doesn't function as it's supposed to.

And, many people in the disabled community

or in the chronically ill community really cannot meet the beauty standard

because their body just isn't cooperating,

which brings me to the lesson

that I fear many of us did not learn from the late,

great Chadwick Boseman.

Chadwick was sick with cancer,

which he chose not to reveal to the public for a very long time

while he was undergoing treatment.

But, we were able to see his body transform pretty hugely in his final

years of life.

And his body was discussed ad nauseam,

with many people accusing him of being a drug addict.

And then when it came out

that in fact he had cancer

and was dying from it,

there was a huge backlash to how we discussed his body in the first

place.

The lesson here being,

maybe we shouldn't discuss people's bodies and speculate on their health.

But, I truly wonder in such a looks-obsessed culture

if we'll ever be able to do

that when we stick to these impossible beauty standards

and when we refuse to acknowledge how illness

and disability can impact a body.

And when we judge each other for both getting beauty treatments

and not getting beauty treatments,

we set up a whole mess of a system for ourselves.

And we end up having not only really harmful conversations,

but reinforcing these toxic social norms.