The Skinny on Hooters

Now here's a story headline: America's obesity epidemic has finally spread to the Hooters Girls. It's one thing when two-thirds of Americans are overweight, (primarily from eating the kind of food Hooters serves) but if 17,000 Hooters Girls start packing it on, well, this is indeed a national tragedy. Hooters marketing is simple, skinny women and fattening food, but this kind of sell does not come without societal costs.

Hooters is on the hook for alleged weight discrimination. Last week a Michigan judge ruled that two former waitresses filed a weight discrimination case against the restaurant chain could proceed with their cases.

Cassandra Marie Smith, one of the plaintiffs, alleges in her complaint that she began working at a Hooters in 2008. At the time she weight 145 pounds and 5'8'. In a performance evaluation earlier this year, she claims in her complaint, a restaurant manager advised her "to join a gym in order to lose weight and improve her looks so that she would fit better into the extra small-sized uniform." She alleged she was put on a 30-day "weight probation" and resigned. Leeanne Convery at the time was 4'11' and 115 pounds. Convery said in her lawsuit that she lost 15 pounds and was encouraged to take appetite-suppressing drugs, only to be told by a manager that she'd made no improvement. The official uniform for Hooters waitresses, they claim, comes in three sizes: extra extra small, extra small, or small.

Atlanta-based Hooters is dealing with America's obesity problem by putting some Hooters Girls on "weight probation," but turns out you may not be able to do that in Michigan, where a civil-rights law from the 1970s prohibits weight discrimination. The suit cites Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by employers based on a number of factors. Height and weight discrimination were added in a 1976 amendment by then-state Rep. Thomas Mathieu.

Airlines have long been trying to force large passengers to buy two seats. Medical-equipment makers have had to develop heavy-duty gurneys and extra-large imaging machines. And even little ol' Natural Nails in DeKalb County, GA, recently made news for adding a $5 fat fee to its bills.

Hooters expectations are no different than those set for Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders or the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. "We have an image to uphold," Mr. McNeil said. "We've been upholding it for 27 years. Hopefully, we'll be doing it for another 27 years."

What do you think of this business case?