Social stigma of obesity
Social stigma of obesity is bias or discriminatory behaviors targeted at overweight and obese individuals because of their weight and high body fat percentage. Such social stigmas can span one's entire life as long as excess weight is present, starting from a young age and lasting into adulthood. Studies also indicate overweight and obese individuals experience rates of stigma near prevalent to that of racial discrimination. Stigmatization of obesity is usually associated with increased health risks of being overweight or obese and the possibility of a shorter lifespan.
Obese people marry less often, experience fewer educational and career opportunities, and on average earn a lesser income than normal weight individuals. Although public support regarding disability services, civil rights, and anti-workplace discrimination laws for obese individuals have gained support across the years, overweight and obese individuals still experience discrimination, which may have detrimental implications in relation to both physiological and psychological health.
These issues are compounded by the significant negative physiological effects that are already associated with obesity, which some have proposed may be caused in part by stress from the social stigma of obesity.
Anti-fat bias refers to prejudicial assumptions that are based on an assessment of a person as being overweight or obese. It is also known as "fat shaming" or "fatphobia". Anti-fat bias can be found in many facets of society, and fat activists commonly cite examples of mass media and popular culture that pervade this phenomenon.
Characteristics
Studies have indicated that experiencing weight stigma reinforces lifestyle behaviors that contribute to obesity. Individuals who are overweight or obese tend to devalue their own in-group and prefer the out-group.Prevalence
Individuals who are subjected to weight-related stigma are shown to be admired less in the public eye when compared with other groups, such as sexual and gender minorities and those with mental illness. In the US, self-reported incidents of weight-based discrimination increased from 1995 to 2006.Anti-fat bias has been observed in groups hoping to become physical education instructors. In a study published in 2007, a group of 344 psychology or physical education majors at a New Zealand University were compared, and it was found that the prospective physical education teachers were more likely to display implicit anti-fat attitudes than the psychology majors.
A number of studies have found that health care providers frequently have explicit and/or implicit biases against overweight people, and it has been found that overweight patients may receive lower quality care as a result of their weight. Medical professionals who specialize in the treatment of obesity have been found to have strong negative associations toward obese individuals. The stress from obesity-related stigma may also cause negative health outcomes.
A 2004 study in preschool-aged children reported a preference for average-sized children over overweight children as friends. Overweight individuals often found themselves suffering repercussions in many facets of society, including legal and employment issues later in their life.
According to a 2010 review of published studies, interventions seeking to reduce prejudice and social stigma against fat and obesity are largely ineffective.
Theoretical explanations
In order to understand weight-biased attitudes, theories have been proposed to explain these biases and the subsequent discrimination they cause. Christian S. Crandall discusses the "Justification of Stigmatization". Also his Social Ideology Perspective draws on traditional North American values of self-determination, individualism, and self-discipline.Based on these values, anti-fat attitudes may derive from directing blame for being overweight towards individuals who are overweight. Similarly, the attribution theory suggests that attitudes towards obese individuals are dependent on how much control they are perceived to have over their weight. Throughout the literature, numerous studies have shown support for this theory. One study conducted a multinational examination of weight bias across four countries with comparable obesity rates.
The study found that attributions of behavioral causes of obesity were associated with greater weight bias. Similarly, viewing obesity as being caused by a lack of willpower was also associated with greater weight bias. There appears to be a decrease in weight bias when weight is attributed to factors that are less within the individual's control, or when individuals are perceived as trying to lose weight. However, evidence also exists showing that biases against obese individuals also include disgust towards them, which can persist regardless of if one knows that obesity is not caused by obese individuals' actions.
Fatphobia does not generally refer to a fear of obese people, but rather a socially constructed phenomenon of particular prevalence in the western world. People who live in the west, value healthy and strong bodies that prioritize agility, endurance and fertility - with focus on achievement and individual responsibility.
Not only do such bodies associate the western world with similar ideals, but Lloyd deMause suggests the 'fitness/toughness craze' may also reflect preparations for war.
The overabundance of calorically high, nutrient- and other essential vitamin and mineral-depleted food options more common in the western hemisphere is often associated with people who are against fat phobia.
The 'fattening huts' of young girls in Nigeria however, represent beauty, marriageability and money – a direct reflection of the value of economic resource and food. There, fatness is a welcome sign of health, prosperity and maternity: linked to self-worth and sexuality also.
Fatphobia does not fear 'fat' but prejudice, discrimination, exclusion and preventable disease too: fears directly attributable to the myriad of social, political, historical, economic and cultural processes at work. In this way, fatphobia is a culturally derived phenomenon influencing relationships to food as well to the female form. Trends in 'blame, shame and stigma' have contributed to fat positivity and 'health at every size' movements, that create digital 'safe spaces' for activism and radical fat acceptance that seek to resist/shift such powerful cultural perspectives.
Trait attribution
Anti-fat bias leads people to associate individuals who are overweight or obese with negative personality traits such as "lacking willpower", "lazy", "gluttonous", "stupid", "incompetent", or "unmotivated". This bias is not restricted to clinically obese individuals. It also encompasses those whose body shape is found to be unacceptable when compared to modern society's perception of the ideal body type. Fat-shaming is fairly common in the United States, even though most adult Americans are overweight. Huffington Post wrote "two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Yet overweight and obese individuals are subject to discrimination from employers, healthcare professionals, and potential romantic partners".Anti-fat bias can be escalated by giving a context to the individual's appearance of obesity. For example, when told an individual was obese because of "overeating" and "lack of exercise", a higher implicit bias was found among study participants than those not provided with context. However, when the group was told that "genetics" was to blame, they did not exhibit a lowered implicit bias after the explanation.
Anti-fat bias is not a strictly Western cultural phenomenon. Instances of implicit anti-fat bias have been found across several cultures.
Additionally, recent work around physical appearance issues, body image, and anti-fat or obesity prejudice suggests that feelings about one's own appearance may stimulate downward physical comparisons with obese individuals in order to make one feel better about one's own physical appearance.
Weight discrimination
Weight stigma is present in multiple settings including healthcare, education, interpersonal situations, multiple media forms and outlets, and across many levels of employment.In the media
Media, in general, overrepresents underweight individuals and underrepresents overweight individuals. One-third of women in television are classified as underweight, while only 5% of the general population falls into that category. Conversely, a study on over a thousand major television characters from 2003 identified 14% of female characters and 24% of male characters to be overweight, despite the real-world percentages being more than double those reported numbers.Even when overweight people are included in television, they often play minor, stereotyped roles. Nearly two thirds of the most popular children's movies contain negative portrayals of fat people, stereotyping them to be unintelligent, lazy, and evil. Fat television characters are more commonly seen eating and are less likely to be involved in romantic relationships compared to average weight television characters. Male characters are less commonly portrayed as having close friendships.
In 2007, another analysis sampled 135 scenes featuring overweight individuals from popular television programs and movies are coded for anti-fat humor. The majority of anti-fat humor found was verbal and directed at the individual in their presence. Additionally, a relationship was found between audience laughter and a male character poking fun at a female character's body, but that same relationship wasn't there when it was a female character ridiculing a fat male.
There is a great deal of empirical research to support the idea of thin ideal media, or the idea that the media tends to glorify and focus on thin actors and actresses, models, and other public figures while avoiding the use of overweight individuals.
Puhl et al. also reviewed how in entertainment, news reporting, and advertising, media is a particularly potent source of weight stigma. News reports have blamed individuals who are overweight and obese for various societal issues including prices of fuel, global temperature trends, and precipitating weight gain among their peers. The news media repeatedly engages in the "Headless Fatties" phenomenon, coined by Charlotte Cooper, in which images and videos only depict overweight individuals as bodies by cropping out their heads. This objectification happens in 72% of all news reports on obesity.
The University of California, Los Angeles, conducted a study that analyzed scientific research on weight and the news reports on such research. They looked for disparities in language, the cited causes of obesity, and proposed solution. News stories were more likely than the scientific articles to use dramatized language, words such as epidemic, crisis, war, and terrorism, and were more likely to cite individual behaviors as the causes and solutions to obesity, ignoring the systemic issues.
In September 2011, prominent nationally syndicated columnist Michael Kinsley wrote, "New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cannot be president: He is just too fat... why should Christie's weight be more than we can bear in a president? Why should it even be a legitimate issue if he runs? One reason is that a presidential candidate should be judged on behavior and character... Perhaps Christie is the one to help us get our national appetites under control. But it would help if he got his own under control first." Governor Christie responded on October 4, 2011, stating "The people who pretend to be serious commentators who wrote about this are among the most ignorant I've ever heard in my life. To say that, because you're overweight, you are therefore undisciplined—you know, I don't think undisciplined people get to achieve great positions in our society, so that kind of stuff is just ignorant."
In 2013, Haley Morris-Cafiero's photography project "Wait Watchers", in which she photographed the reactions to her presence by random passers-by, went viral. New York magazine wrote, "The frequency with which Morris-Cafiero succeeds at documenting passersby's visible disdain for her body seems pretty depressing".