Stigma Against Fat People the Last Acceptable Prejudice, Studies Find

Jan. 22, 2013— -- At a time when obesity is seen as a serious public health threat, research has found a growing prejudice against fat people.

Last week, the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University published a study suggesting that male jurors didn't administer blind justice when it came to plus-size female defendants.

Female jurors displayed no prejudice against fat defendants but men -- especially lean men -- were far more likely to slap a guilty verdict on an overweight woman and were quicker to label her a repeat offender with an "awareness of her crimes."

Another recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership found that top managers with a high body mass index were judged more harshly and seen as less effective than their slimmer colleagues by their peers, both at work and in interpersonal relationships.

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Rebecca Puhl, one of the Yale researchers who co-wrote the juror study, said these displays of fat stigma are par for the course.

"Thinness has come to symbolize important values in our society, values such as discipline, hard work, ambition and willpower. If you're not thin, then you don't have them," she said.

Previous research by Puhl and her associates found that prejudice against fat people was pervasive and translated into inequities across broad areas of life.

Some examples: Fifty percent of doctors found that fat patients were "awkward, ugly, weak-willed and unlikely to comply with treatment" and 24 percent of nurses said they were repulsed by their obese patients. Nearly 30 percent of teachers said that becoming obese was "the worst thing that can happen to someone" – and more than 70 percent of obese people said they had been ridiculed about their weight by a family member.

Heavy-Duty Stereotypes

Kenlie Tiggeman, a political consultant who lives in New Orleans, said she's never needed a study to highlight hostility against fat people. As someone who has lost 120 pounds but has a 100 more to lose, she lives it.

Last year Tiggeman was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight not once but twice because the carrier deemed her "too fat to fly." According to Tiggeman and witnesses, she was stopped at the gate both times by airline employees who proceeded to quiz her loudly about her weight and dress size before denying her boarding access.

Far from being an isolated incidence, Tiggeman said the experience was symptomatic of what she encounters every day.

"Just last week I was at the swimming pool in my gym when I overheard a woman on her cell tell a friend she was whale watching," Tiggeman said. "She was looking right at me. I know she was talking about me."

People have no qualms aiming such overt cruelty at obese people, Puhl said, because there are few consequences. She said that fat stigma is rarely challenged and often ignored. In effect, it's the last acceptable prejudice.