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Study: People found unattractive if they stand next to obese friends



 
 
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Old October 22nd, 2003, 08:53 AM
Steve Chaney, aka Papa Gunnykins ®
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Default Study: People found unattractive if they stand next to obese friends

Study: People found unattractive if they stand next to obese friends

FORT LAUDERDALE (AP) — While it is no surprise that people often have a low
opinion of the overweight, a new study finds that just standing next to a
large person can be bad for one's image.
The experiment, conducted in England, demonstrates the depths of
stigmatization endured by heavy people: It even rubs off on their friends.

Trying to combat discrimination against the overweight is a topic of
discussion at this week's meeting in Fort Lauderdale of the North American
Association for the Study of Obesity, the field's top professional
organization.

Even here, though, another study suggests that obesity specialists
themselves may harbor subtle, if unintentional, negative attitudes toward
their patients.

"Weight stigma is powerful, pervasive and destructive," said Marlene
Schwartz, a Yale psychologist.

In the English study, psychologist Jason Halford and colleagues from the
University of Liverpool tested 144 female students' reactions to two prom
photos. One showed a dapper, thin young fellow standing next to a svelte
ringlet-haired woman. The other was the same photo altered to show the guy
arm-in-arm with a very large, nicely dressed woman.

The volunteers took a quick look at one or the other of the pictures and
then were asked their opinion of the man. They rated him from 1 to 5 on 50
negative adjectives — called the "fat phobia scale" — that people often use
to describe obese people.

The man with the big woman was rated 22% more negatively than the same
fellow with the thin companion. When seen with the large woman, he was more
likely to be described as miserable, self-indulgent, passive, shapeless,
depressed, weak, insignificant and insecure.

"It shows that people project negative attitudes associated with obesity
not only on the obese but all those who associate with them," Halford said.

The study also found that students who were themselves overweight were more
likely than usual to rate the man harshly when pictured with the obese
partner.

At the same obesity meeting two years ago, researchers give a word quiz,
called an implicit association test, to about 200 obesity professionals.
The test, intended to measure bias, asks people to quickly link up words
like "lazy," "stupid" and "worthless" on command with obese or thin people.

The results, described at this year's meeting, showed that obesity
professionals were more apt to link the negative words with overweight
people, even when trying not to.

"These are unconscious attitudes," said Heather Chambliss of the Cooper
Institute in Dallas.

Carol Johnson of Milwaukee, a large woman who heads a support organization
called Largely Positive, told the conference that overweight people are
often discriminated against by doctors, who ascribe all their problems to
weight and sometimes withhold standard treatments, like blood pressure
pills, that they freely prescribe to thin patients.

"Society wants no fatties," Johnson said.

Rebecca Puhl of Yale said bias against the large begins early in life.
Studies show that even preschoolers are more likely to describe overweight
playmates as mean, ugly or stupid.

She said overweight people are less likely to get into college, less likely
to get hired and more likely to get fired.

"Expressing negative attitudes toward obese people has become an acceptable
form of bias," she said.

**********
-- Steve
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Steve Chaney

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