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Yoga and Nutrition: Tips & Articles

Fear and Loathing of our Waistlines: The vicious cycle of weight bias

by Annie Kay MS RD RYT

Several years ago at a nutrition conference, I took a test designed by researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy at Yale, that consisted of quickly circling a series of characteristics which may or may not describe an overweight person. Here we were, a roomful of dietitians whose professional lives are dedicated to helping those who struggle with weight and eating, and when the results came in, we were shown to be rife with our own weight bias. The speaker shared that her experience with health professionals across the country suggested that all of us – down to a person – carry deep bias against people of size. We are a nation terrified of gaining weight and intolerant of those who do. Social stigmatization of overweight people is at an all-time high. All the while we grow larger by the day.

This mass aversion to weight appears to be based less in science than fashion. Body weight, scientists are finding, does not predict health as well as healthy lifestyles and physical fitness do. More Americans are fit and fat, and thinness does not guarantee good health.

Obesity is being blamed for everything from higher gas prices to global warming. The latest round of zealous investigation of the costs of obesity is an article in the current issue of The Engineering Economist, which calculates how much more gasoline is used by overweight Americans. The findings are in the same vein as an article by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year, that calculated how much more fuel airlines use now that the American waistline has expanded.

“People are out scouring the landscape for things that make obese people look bad,” noted Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy at Yale in a recent New York Times article. Is that a bad thing? Opinions are decidedly mixed. Some educators feel that anything that can be done to motivate people to eat less and exercise more should be done, including social ridicule.

Does this public flogging work? Research suggests that for weight issues, it does not.