First, let me say, I don't care if people are fat or not. Makes no difference to me. Just so no one accuses me of hating fat people. blah.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-113676c.html
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Fat friend is a foe to image
Bias shows up in study
By CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
If you want to be liked, don't stand next to a fat person.
That's what British researchers using a "fat phobia scale" would have you believe.
University of Liverpool researchers showed 144 female students two prom photos - one showing a thin man with a svelte woman, the other showing the same dapper dude with a large lady. Then they were read a list of negative adjectives, such as miserable, self-indulgent, passive or weak - and were told to rate the man on a scale of 1 to 5 for each adjective.
The result was that when with the big woman, the man was rated 22% more negatively than with the thin one.
"It shows that people project negative attitudes associated with obesity not only on the obese but all those who associate with them," said Jason Halford, a psychologist who led the study.
The study also found that students who were overweight were more likely to diss the man with the chunky partner.
"Society wants no fatties," said Carol Johnson of Largely Positive, a U.S. group that fights discrimination against overweight people.
The British study was unveiled yesterday at a meeting in Fort Lauderdale of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.
Another study released yesterday found that obesity experts themselves were not immune to anti-fat feelings.
Yale University researchers who surveyed the same obesity conference two years ago found that the professionals unintentionally endorsed stereotypes that fat people are "lazy, stupid and worthless," according to an abstract of the study.
"Weight stigma is powerful, pervasive and destructive," said Marlene Schwartz, a Yale psychologist.
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I just thought it was interesting.