Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath, Criticised For ‘New Health Policy’ That Promotes Fat Shaming, Issues Clarification. But Still, Nope!

By Kinjal Panchal Updated April 08, 2022 7:47 PM

In a world where social media has given one the boon to say anything and everything they want, there are some who have been using the platforms to spread negativity. Trolling, fat-shaming, slut-shaming and whatnot go on social media and it is really surprising how far can one go to make another person feel bad about themselves. Adding to the same, recently, Zerodha CEO and founder Nithin Kamath took to Twitter to announce a new way to ‘encourage’ his employees to stay fit on account of World Health Day. He has enticed his employees in the name of half a month’s bonus if they have a body mass index of less than 25. And needless to say, this is as toxic and twisted as possible.

Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath’s Twisted Way Of Encouraging Fitness Among Employees

In his tweet, Kamath said that anyone on his team who has a body mass index less than 25 will get getting half a month’s salary as a bonus. In his following tweets, he also said that ‘the lowest average BMI or the largest change in average BMI wins’. To those who want to begin this fitness, he suggested they can start with walking 10,000 steps daily. Check his tweets below.

We are running a fun health program at @zerodhaonline. Anyone on our team with BMI <25 gets half a month's salary as bonus. The avg BMI of our team is 25.3 & if we can get to <24 by Aug, everyone gets another ½ month as a bonus. It'd be fun to compete with other companies 😁 1/3

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 7, 2022

The lowest average BMI or the largest change in average BMI wins. The winner chooses a charity everyone else contributes to. Maybe a health tech company can run the initiative.

If you want to do this at your company, do post in the comments.

Happy world health day! 2/3

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 7, 2022

PS: I know BMI isn’t the best measure to track health & fitness, but it is the easiest way to get started. With health & most other things in life, the most important bit is to get started.
Btw, walking 10,000 steps daily is a great start if you've been wanting to get healthy 3/3

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 7, 2022

He also wrote a series of tweets later wherein he said that his team has ‘experimented’ with a couple of ideas to help the team prioritise their health amid the pandemic and the new work-from-home regime. He also added that this kind of initiative was conducted by the team last year as well and the one who met their goals was chosen through a lottery system that won them Rs 10 Lacs.

Sharing more context.
We have experimented with a bunch of ideas since Covid & WFH to help the team think about their health. Sitting is the new smoking, & the idea has been to nudge everyone to move.
Killing all work chats post 6pm & weekends have probably had the best ROI. 1/5 https://t.co/YsP83CrCmm

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 8, 2022

Last year we let everyone on the team set health goals & ran a lottery amongst those who met their goals for Rs 10lks. Was successful, but the participation wasn't broad-based.
We ran online yoga sessions & made mental health counselors available for the team during lockdowns 2/5

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 8, 2022

The average age of the team has gone up to 30 (we haven't really been hiring), and the health levels have dipped in the past 2 years due to WFH and the pandemic stress. So as a company, the onus is to do whatever to nudge everyone on the team to think about their health. 3/5

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 8, 2022

The plan has been to get everyone to a diagnostic center once a year to track health, but has been a challenge given WFH & most on our team aren’t in Metros. Instead of procrastinating, we thought a good way is to get started with something. 4/5

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 8, 2022

And this is just an added bonus over and above all other bonuses & incentives that everyone on the team earns. Just like that Rs 10lk prize pool for the lottery we ran last year to pick one person amongst everyone who met their health goals. 5/5

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 8, 2022

Also read: Harnaaz Sandhu Fatshamed For Her Opinion On The Hijab Row. Of Course, Attack A Woman’s Appearance When There’s No Valid Argument!

Quite obviously, this did not sit well with netizens who have lashed out at Nithin Kamath for putting out these tweets. He has received serious backlash for his tweets. One Twitter user wrote that this ‘ableist practice is discriminatory and disgusting’ while another wrote ‘It’s discrimination, it’s ablist, it’s racist, it’s bullying & it’s horrifically fat phobic.’

WTF is this ‘fun health program’..

Such ableist practice and experiment of health and well-being is sooo discriminatory and disgusting. https://t.co/LSqIN5j4wo

— Krupa Raghunathan (she/her) (@asmani_inqalab) April 8, 2022

https://twitter.com/eboncat/status/1512420428437893125

Lolol this is so bad. Don't do this. https://t.co/SFCqA3FGzc

— jac (@JAC_OnTheBrazos) April 8, 2022

God, this chap. Why are Startup Bros, especially in India, so dim and such douchebags? https://t.co/9RSZGxUNX9

— Brown Sahiba (@Rajyasree) April 8, 2022

Have you taken into consideration various health reasons why someone cannot maintain the desired BMI in this case? How does that make the workplace equitable? And the other pressing issue is how this will enable to already shaming culture if someone do not have the + https://t.co/mGJ2XO0Oht

— m (@BumpAhead) April 8, 2022

https://twitter.com/mohiittverma/status/1512417112077176837

Also read: Miss Universe Harnaaz Sandhu Revealed She Has Celiac Disease. Here’s All You Need To Know About The Auto-Immune Disease.

What Nithin Kamath has tweeted is actually wrong on so many levels. If he actually did care about his employees’ health, he could have managed to motivate them differently. He did not have to entice them with a salary bonus to get to lose weight. What’s more, centering ‘health concerns’ around weight alone is an extremely problematic notion. The corporate world is plagued with several other health concerns, primarily stemming from the stressful lives that employees lead. Perhaps something on that front would’ve been more thoughtful than telling people with existing health issues that they don’t deserve to be paid bonuses.