Many overweight women try to lose weight to increase their attractiveness. A new study shows that this doesn't work for many.
In ancient Greece, stigma was a mark on a slave's body that they could not remove for the rest of their lives, even if they formally became free. It turns out that excess weight is also a kind of stigma. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the University of Manchester in the UK and the University of Hawaii in the US.
They found that even if an overweight woman achieves significant success in her weight loss efforts, her family and friends still remember her as “chubby.” This means they view her as lazy and greedy. The study involved 273 volunteers. All were shown photographs of five 31-year-old women, accompanied by written descriptions of their weight history.
One woman had been naturally thin her entire life, another suffered from obesity. The remaining three were also once considered overweight, but managed to lose at least 40 kg and regain their normal proportions. Volunteers were asked to rate the women based on their level of attractiveness.
It turned out that the only naturally slender woman was attractive, while those who had lost weight to the same size somehow aroused less interest. The heaviest woman attracted almost no interest at all.
“The stigma of obesity is so powerful and pervasive that it persists even after a person loses weight,” says researcher Dr. Janet Latner. “This creates one of the most powerful forms of discrimination that is rarely discussed—weight discrimination.”