How again is being fat socially acceptable?

8th April 2008

How again is being fat socially acceptable?

posted in Fat Bias |

Being fat isn’t a piece of cake regardless if you’re a man or a woman. But it seems as if fat women have a heavier load to bear. This is not to say that fat men do not suffer size discrimination – they do, but at much higher weights than women do.

I don’t believe the fight against fat bias ought to be split along gender lines. It’s a collective fight. But it seems as if women have more of an uphill climb than do men – as documented in a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, published this month in the International Journal of Obesity.

Researchers there documented the prevalence of self-reported weight discrimination and compared it to the experiences of discrimination based on race and gender among a nationally representative sample of adults ages 25 – 74. The data was obtained from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States.

Overall, the study showed that weight discrimination, particularly against women, is as common as racial discrimination. But the researchers also identified the amount of weight gain that triggers a discriminatory backlash. They found that women appear to be at risk for discrimination at far lower weights, relative to their body size, than men.

Based on body mass index, which is a measure of body fat based on height and weight, a normal weight is in the range of 18.5 to 24.9. The study found that women begin to experience noticeable weight bias — such as problems at work or difficulty in personal relationships — when they reach a body mass index, or B.M.I., of 27. For a 5-foot-5-inch woman, that means discrimination starts once she reaches a weight of 162 pounds — or about 13 pounds more than her highest healthy weight, based on B.M.I. charts.

…Weight bias against men becomes noticeable when a man reaches a B.M.I. of 35 or higher. A 5-foot-9-inch man has a B.M.I. of 35 if he weighs 237 pounds — or 68 pounds above his highest healthy weight.

The fact that women are more likely to be discriminated against for weight explains why women are also twice as likely to report weight discrimination. Weight-related workplace bias and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity are also more common for women, the study revealed. Researchers found that weight discrimination is more prevalent than discrimination based on sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs.

But according to study co-author Tatiana Andreyava, obesity “continues to remain socially acceptable.”

Do these authors live in the same universe that I do?

One needn’t look beyond the Times article itself to make a case. The study reveals that women reported weight-based discrimination at a BMI of 27 or just 13 pounds above what the government constitutes a “healthy” weight. And yet, look at the photo the Times chose to use for the article. Does this woman look 13 pounds overweight? It’s this kind of over-dramatization that serves to inflate anti-obesity sentiments and weight-related discrimination.

How again is being fat socially acceptable?

The center’s very own study reveals weight discrimination to be the most prevalent form of discrimination, eclipsing discrimination based on sexual orientation, ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs.