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Anti-fat bias


Anti-fat bias refers to the prejudicial assumption of personality characteristics based on a visual assessment of a person as being obese. Fat activists allege anti-fat bias can be found in many facets of society, and blame the media for the pervasiveness of this phenomenon.

Anti-fat bias leads people to associate individuals who are overweight or obese with negative personality traits such as "lazy", "greedy", "stupid", "smelly", "slow", or "unmotivated." This bias is not restricted to clinically obese individuals, but also encompasses those whose body shape is in some way found unacceptable according to society's modern standards (although still within the normal or overweight BMI range). It is a classical example of the halo effect in cultures where physical preferences favor low body fat. Fat-shaming is fairly common in the United States, even though most adult Americans are overweight. Huffington Post wrote "two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Yet overweight and obese individuals are subject to discrimination from employers, healthcare professionals and potential romantic partners".

Anti-fat bias can be moderated by giving a mitigating context to the individual’s appearance of obesity. For example, when told an individual was obese because of "overeating" and "lack of exercise", a higher implicit bias was found among study participants than those not provided with context. When the group was told that "genetics" was to blame they did not exhibit a lowered implicit bias after the explanation.

Anti-fat bias is not a strictly Western cultural phenomenon. Instances of implicit anti-fat bias have been found across several cultures.

Newer research suggests that the stereotypical traits and attributions are post hoc justifications for the expression of prejudice against obese people. Initial unconscious feelings of disgust and associated negative valence when viewing obesity may evoke negative emotions that need to be justified, and thus, negative attributions supporting or justifying the negative feelings towards obesity are produced.

Additionally, recent work around physical appearance issues, body image, and anti-fat or obesity prejudice suggests that feelings about one's own appearance may stimulate downward physical comparisons with obese individuals in order to make one feel better about their own physical appearance.


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