Is it not possible that none of them were fat when they got the job, but that less figure-conscious men spent their 7 figure salary on eating out and beer, whereas with women under more (perceived) pressure to look slim and healthy they spent theirs on personal trainers or liposuction?

After calling bullshit on another piece on the reg, you took the words out of my mouth...

In other news: Men who drive frequently are fatter than their walking counterparts, therefore, regulaly buying petrol makes you fat.

I'm with Brutus: do the blokes balloon out after becoming CEO, or while in middle management, or are they tubby to start with ? At what age should I start dodging the lettuce ?

Someone needs to send this report to the fellas that had the plastic surgery in the other article- apparently they should've spent their loan on some sort of reverse-liposuction!

If one looks at newsreaders - what we call anchorpersons on this side of the Atlantic - one will find the same thing. Men are not judged by their looks nearly as much as women are. An older man, or one with a bit of extra weight, might simply be thought of as mature and wise, but when women put on weight, or show their age, the impression others - to some extent, even women as well as men - have is exclusively negative.

A study that confirms the obvious might be a waste of time, but I wouldn't suspect it of finding the wrong answer.

Simply put, age.

The majority of men thicken as they age. A former boss of mine, as lean and active a person as you will ever meet, ran into me years after he'd moved on. I was shocked at how he'd gone very thick through the middle.

Ergo, since it takes longer to become CEO than a middle management drone, CEOs can be expected to be heftier than mm.

QED etc.

41% overweight?

I thought that sounded low, 66% according to:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm

Anyway, as other commenters have already argued, the whole process is highly flawed and subjective.