Weight can contribute to the glass ceiling on the career growth of women to the top levels of management.

 Mark Roehling, the associate professor of HRM at Michigan State University (MSU), has discovered that overweight and obese women of the U.S. are considerably underrepresented among the top CEOs.
Even though obese men have also been underrepresented, overweight men were actually overrepresented among top CEOs. 

Roehling says that the different results for women and men suggest that weight discrimination adds to the glass ceiling effect for women. 

 “The results suggest that while being obese limits the career opportunities of both women and men, being ‘merely overweight’ harms only female executives – and may actually benefit male executives,” he said. 

“This pattern of findings is consistent with previous research indicating that, at least among white Americans, there is a tendency to hold women to harsher weight standards,” he added.