ABSTRACT

Weight-related prejudice is the only socially acceptable form of discrimination left. Because of society’s unrealistic beauty standards, lack of proper education, medical bias, media, etc., obesity is constantly stigmatized. This leads overweight and obese people to have a negative self-image and causes ripple effects on said individuals. The following experiment in which a group of fifty randomly selected adults over eighteen are given a survey about their views on obesity, societal beauty standards, and body image supports this. For the multiple-choice, 57% of people responded that they had received obesity education, and 63% have thought negatively about an overweight individual because of their size. An overwhelming 84% have seen negative media when it comes to obesity, with 100% of this negativity stemming from social media, 77% from television, and 61% from advertisements. Then a Likert scale portion was presented in which 26% considered themselves overweight, 52% considered obese people somewhat lazy, and 31% considered obese people only somewhat competent. 47% stated obese people are somewhat attractive, 26% answered that obesity is an eating disorder, 63% recognized that obesity affects one’s mental health, 63% responded that obesity should be part of education, and 57% responded that one’s own decisions somewhat cause obesity. Only 21% positively view their body image. Finally, 47% responded that society negatively views overweight people. The end of the survey asks written response questions to gauge societal norms and the cause of obesity. Many mentioned poor eating habits as the cause, but a few recognized health and societal issues. Most noted that the societal beauty standards are to either be skinny or have curves in the right places. According to these results, many people are misinformed about obesity and view obese people poorly. The survey maintains that society has extremely unrealistic beauty standards presented in all forms of media, especially social media.