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We Are Why You Are Fat
By
Garth Johnston
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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Seeing unattractive photos of fat people in the media is (part of) why you are fat, according to a new study out of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. According to the researchers, online news sources tend to use negative images of overweight people in stories about obesity (i.e. eating fast food, wearing tight clothes or shown with their heads cut off) and those images in turn perpetuate obesity's bad reputation, which may contribute to obesity itself.
Looking at images in obesity stories on news sites from a two week period in 2009, the study identified 441 individuals in photos. 65 percent of them were overweight/obese and 27 percent were not. According to the researchers "overall, 72% of images that depicted an overweight or obese person were portrayed in a negative, stigmatizing manner" with the overweight more likely "to have their heads cut out of the photos, to be portrayed showing only their abdomens or lower bodies, and to be shown eating or drinking than were nonoverweight individuals." Further, the overweight photo subjects were "significantly less likely" to be shown fully clothed, wearing professional clothing, or exercising than their less weight-challenged peers.
"News photographs degrade and dehumanize obese individuals when they show them with their heads cut out of images, as isolated body parts, or with an unflattering emphasis on excess weight," said Rebecca Puhl, co-author of the study. "They become symbols of an epidemic rather than valued members of society."
Other research already apparently shows that people who see unattractive photos of overweight people tend to have more weight bias than those who don't. And that bias can quickly become a social stigma, which in turn can cause depression and low self-esteem in fat folk, which in turn can trigger overeating, inactivity and further weight gain.
So what to do? "The news media has tremendous power to shape the opinion of policy makers and the public, and can play an important role in reducing pervasive societal weight stigma by changing the visual content of their news reports about obesity," said Puhl. As such the Rudd Center has released a set of guidelines [PDF] for how the media should portray obese people and even started an image gallery of flattering fat photos. Related: we will never stop running the above photo.
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