Size discrimination or sizeism is a form of discrimination based upon the size of a person's body.
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This type of discrimination can take a number of forms, ranging from refusing to hire someone because he or she is too short or too tall, to treating overweight and underweight individuals with disdain. In some regions, laws are in place to prohibit sizeism, but sizeist attitudes (such as "overweight people are lazy" and other such attitudes) are often ingrained in modern society.
Sizeism can be based on height, weight or both, and so is often related to height- and weight-based discrimination but is not synonymous with either. Depending on where in the world one is and how one chooses to live his/her life, people may have a tendency to be especially tall, slender, short, or plump, and many societies have internalized attitudes about size. As a general rule, sizeist attitudes imply that someone believes that his or her size is superior to that of other people.
Like other forms of discrimination, sizeism isn't always explicit. It involves the perpetuation of stereotypes and attitudes which support those stereotypes, such as the idea that fat people are lazy, that fat people eat too much and don't exercise enough, that tall people are good basketball players or that overweight people often contract diseases which render some jobs dangerous for themselves and others. Sizeist attitudes can also take the form of expressions of physical disgust when confronted with people of differing sizes. Sizeism, being a newly realized discriminatory belief, is usually observed by those who are sufferers.