Small chronicle for the use of all those who go hunting for the kilos of… their spouse, their children or even the neighbor of the office. You are off the mark. You even do fat shaming.
Clearly, by making fun of people who have a few bulges, who frequently eat more at the table or who abandon their diet after three days, you are conveying worn-out stereotypes, we read on the site of Top health. “The ‘fat’ and the ‘fat’ are said to be lazy and incompetent, lacking in willpower, not deserving of finding love and, above all, being entirely responsible for their overweight,” the review adds.
And words carry weight. They are even toxic to those who listen to them. You think you are creating a shock likely to motivate overweight people, but the opposite is happening. “People who are discriminated against withdraw into themselves, consume more calories and stop exercising. It’s a vicious circle… which has very concrete consequences on their health”, analyzes Rebecca Pearl, researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a study published in the journal obesity.
His team looked at 159 obese, mostly African-American women. The researchers studied the level of fat shaming to which they were subjected on a daily basis and measured the impact on their morale.
The final verdict: the women who felt the most stigmatized had a threefold increased risk of metabolic syndrome, and six times the risk of having higher than average triglyceride levels. The humiliation of the entourage or the medical staff, concludes the researcher, is never effective in inducing a positive change in behavior. On good terms…
