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I found this article on Netscape and was wondering what you all thought of it, and if anyone has faced something like this... being discriminated agaist due to your size, whether by a store clerk or in other situations. (Sorry about the incredibly long URL!!)
The poll I put up just to give you guys a lil cash to go with the topic biggrin

*Edit: The URL wasn't working, so here's the article... it's a bit long, but an interesting read, I thought.
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Fat Shoppers: Very Ugly Case of Bigotry

Obese shoppers are treated more rudely and receive fewer smiles and less eye contact from sales clerks than shoppers of normal weight, are the startling results of a study conducted by researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas

In this study, the researchers enlisted 10 white women of normal weight, all of whom were between the ages of 19 and 28. They visited 152 stores in a Houston shopping mall dressed casually, professionally, or in a prosthetic suit that made them look like a size 22. In a second experiment, the women in the fat suit visited 66 stores; half were told to either drink a diet soda and mention they were trying to lose weight, while the other half sipped an ice cream drink and said they were not on a diet. In each store, the women carefully followed a script where they told the sales clerks they were shopping for a gift for someone else. Recording devices were hidden in their shopping bags, and the shoppers completed written questionnaires following each store visit.

Specifically the shoppers experienced the following while wearing the fat suits:
--Sales clerks ended interactions with the obese shoppers more quickly.
--Sales clerks used a negative tone with them.
--The obese shoppers experienced less discrimination when they were professionally dressed than when they wore casual attire.
--When the obese shoppers sipped a diet soda and mentioned they were trying to lose weight, the sales clerks treated them just as nicely as when they shopped without the fat suit.

Study leader Eden King told Reuters that weight discrimination is "pervasive in all kinds of social interactions." However, in this case, the sales clerks are paid to be nice--and they weren't. "The results of our research revealed that although customer sales personnel do not formally discriminate against obese customers, they do discriminate in subtle, interpersonal ways," she said in a news release announcing the study findings.

King also conducted a separate survey of 191 obese and non-obese white shoppers and found that obese shoppers spend less time and money in a store when they experience discrimination from sales clerks. Storeowners not only have a financial incentive for addressing this, but also an ethical one, she insisted. The study findings will be presented later this month to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Los Angeles, California.

That sucks! I guess I will just copy the article... it wasn't that long. Will get that in a bit. smile

* Edit: fixed!

Yeah, I'm the same way... I'm short with everyone! biggrin Part of why I just couldn't cut it as a sales clerk

ROFL!! The mental images are just too darn funny! biggrin

True, but not everyone has had this happen to them... I know, to the best of my knowledge, I haven't. Of course, that could also be due to the facts that 1: I tend to be totally oblivious and 2: I don't really care. But, as far as I can remember, I actually have not had this happen. Maybe I should pay more attention next time I go somewhere. Although this article *did* make me think about my own shopping habits, and I realized that, if given a choice... if there are two clerks to choose from, and one is a larger person than the other, I will usually chose the larger one. I never really realized I did that until I stopped and thought about.

Has only happend to me once, and i wasn't even shopping for myself o.O;; I wen't into Limited Too to get something for a friend, before i even got to ask anything the sales person made this " O_O OMG! MAN THE HARPOONS!" face >.>;; But normally im at Hot topic...where guys in there 20 find me hot XD and here hotties like to hug me and comment on how cuddley i am o.O

i had that happen to me a couple times, with one of my friends walking through nordstroms