Just Call Me Fat

Being called 'obese' is worse than being called 'fat', and the way we qualify a heavy-weight person can influence the opinions we make on people, according to a new study carried out by the University of New south Wales.

The research concluded that the term 'obese people' triggers more negative judgments that the term 'fat people' does, even if there is no actual difference between the two groups.

University of New South Wales psychologist, Dr Lenny Vartanian, said that “the study reinforces earlier findings that, given the choice between fat and obese, the term fat is the lesser of two evils.”

There's nothing new about the fact that when a group has a certain label, it can affect people's perception of it, and this research simply confirms previous evidence of the phenomenon.

The study included 425 undergraduate students, who were asked to answer questions about a range of social groups, which included heavy-weight people.

The results showed that unlike fat people, obese people were perceived as less favorable and more disgusting.

Also, the study participants stated that they are less likely to look like or ever become obese, than fat.

Dr Vartanian said that “this is further evidence that how a target individual or group is labeled can impact people’s perception of that target.

“Researchers investigating weight bias should be aware that the specific terms used to refer to overweight people can impact how we perceive the scope of the problem.”

The reason for which the term 'obese' has a negative connotation, according to Dr Vartanian, is that obesity is perceived as a medical problem, while being fat is something we might hear every day, about us or about someone else.

“We are all a little bit fat, we all know someone who is fat — it’s a concept we deal with regularly,” he said.

The doctor said that this only proves that people's perceptions are based on emotional responses to words, instead of logic, and “recent evidence also suggests that disgust plays an important role in judgments of obese individuals.”

The recent calls to be very harsh on obese people are now challenged by Dr Vartanian’s findings, who said that “it is important to understand the impact that different terms have on perceptions of heavy-weight individuals.”

In July, the UK health minister as well as the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association said that calling some obese people fat, could be exactly what they need to start losing weight, but “research tells us that shaming overweight and obese people into changing their diet and exercise behavior does not work — it actually backfires, causing them to be less likely to diet and exercise,” added Dr Vartanian.

The findings are published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorder.