What Is Weight Bias? A Look at How Fat Stigma Affects Society
by Jacqueline Raposo for GoodRx Health
Three women — two Black and one white — stand in bras or tanks against a neutral background, smiling into the camera.
Key takeaways:
Weight bias is a negative assumption that someone makes about another person because of their weight.
Weight bias occurs across school, work, and healthcare settings. It affects physical, emotional, social, and financial success.
Society assumes that weight stigma motivates individuals to lose weight. Instead, it increases both obesity rates and weight discrimination.
Bodies come in all shapes, weights, and sizes. There is no “normal” way that a person should look or feel. Yet we’ve all seen weight bias in action.
Maybe a character on TV makes a “fat joke,” and the laugh track kicks in. Or a salesperson assumes a customer with a larger body size isn’t interested in the beauty products their shop sells.
Weight discrimination — also referred to as weight bias — persists throughout American society. So let’s explore where weight bias comes from, the impacts it has, and how we can stop it.
What is weight bias?
Weight bias is any negative belief or judgment made about a person because of their weight.
Weight bias can affect people at any size. But it most often negatively impacts the nearly 75% of Americans who have larger bodies and are identified as overweight or obese.
We say have because our weight does not define us. It has nothing to do with our intelligence, ambition, likeability, or beauty. But weight biases assume that it does. It considers people who have heavier weights as lesser than their peers. Shaming, teasing, and exclusion can happen as a result.
Why does weight bias exist?
American society values individuality, productivity, and ambition. People should act in our own best interests. According to these values, we’re in control of our choices and get what we deserve.
In general, society prizes thinness as a reflection of self-discipline, ambition, and success. Those with larger bodies, then, are believed to lack ambition, self-esteem, or self-control.
Of course, this is untrue. Weight does not determine positive or negative personality traits. And various health and environmental factors contribute to how much a person weighs. Factors can include:
Genetics and family history
Access to affordable, healthy foods
Age-related weight gain
Health conditions, like edema or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
The accessibility of parks and safe spaces to exercise
Chronic stress
Still, these beliefs about heavier weight are so persistent that 92% of Americans report at least one negative belief about fatness. We may not recognize this bias within ourselves. But as a society, we don’t condemn or punish those practicing weight bias. This makes it seem like an acceptable form of prejudice.
Continue reading…
To learn the difference between weight bias and weight stigma; common examples of weight bias in the schools, the workforce, and healthcare; the mental impact of weight bias; and what to do if you experience weight bias.
