Weight stigma can itself increase weight gain: study

Misty Harris, Postmedia News 



Weight stigma is so heavy that the resulting stress can make it even harder for overweight people to manage their eating habits, according to a newly published study.

Reporting in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers found that when overweight women waste time worrying about what others think, they deplete the mental resources they need for self-control — and ultimately weight control. Notably, this effect held true even for those who were satisfied with their figure, suggesting that a stigmatized group is punished regardless of whether they share in those cultural weight taboos.

"The key finding is that weight stigma can actually cause increased weight gain," said lead author Brenda Major, a distinguished professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Stress has been shown to trigger involuntary cognitive, physiological, emotional and behavioural responses. The self-regulatory efforts required to cope with these reactions can leave a person temporarily depleted, which leads to impaired control on other tasks involving restraint or attention.

For example, a previous study found dieters instructed to suppress their emotions during a sad movie ate more ice cream than dieters who didn't stifle their feelings.

To test if this effect applied to anxiety around weight taboos, Major and her team recruited 99 women of varying size: roughly 38 per cent were of normal weight, 35 per cent were overweight and 26 per cent were obese, according to body mass index (BMI) standards.

All women were asked to give a recorded speech about their value as dating partners, which would presumably be given to male and female research assistants who'd assess their date-ability.

Half thought they were being videotaped (body visible), while half thought they were being audiotaped (body not visible). Importantly, weight was never explicitly mentioned to any of the participants.

"In our culture, everybody knows the stereotypes that accompany people who are overweight," says Major. "Even people who are heavy and satisfied with their bodies can still feel threatened when they think other people are judging them."

Women with a higher BMI saw spikes in blood pressure and demonstrated poorer performance on a test of executive control when they thought their weight was visible, but not when they thought they were only being audiotaped. Overweight women also experienced comparatively more stress-related emotions than average-weight women when being videotaped versus audiotaped.

The study concludes that "by depleting the very resources that overweight individuals need to control their weight, and by increasing stress, exposure to weight stigma may ironically increase eating among overweight individuals."

Dr. Arya Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network, says it's clear Western culture needs to stop stigmatizing weight gain and start understanding what causes it.

"The biggest myth out there is that if people would just diet and exercise, nobody would be obese. And that's complete nonsense," says Sharma, a professor of medicine and chair in obesity research at the University of Alberta.

"If we don't stop looking at obesity as a character flaw instead of a complex health condition, then we won't be addressing the underlying issues. Shaming, blaming and taxing aren't constructive or positive strategies."



