Last week, while I was looking up research for our reflective tutorial paper, I came across an article. While I ended up not using that specific article fin my research, I found it very interesting. The article can be viewed here. The question asked in the article is if stigmatizing obesity leads to weight loss. What got me interested in the article in the first place was the study done on women who were in college, which was relatable to us. In the study, 93 female college students were researched. The participants were asked to read and discuss an article titled “lose weight or lose your job” which was considered weight stigmatizing and act as the experimental condition or they were asked to read a non-weight stigmatizing article called “quit smoking or lose your job.”  This was considered to be the control condition. They were then asked to wait in a room where they can help themselves to a snack.

According to the article, the results of the experiment showed that women who perceived themselves to be above-average weight consumed more calories than those who didn’t believe they weighed more than average. When I read the results, I realized that weight stigma did not lead to obesity. Instead, it made it worse, since those women consumed more calories instead of eating less. Those women who were considered overweight were also recorded to have felt les in control of their diet while the author described the other group to be “those who are not overweight and who have a hard time understanding what it is like to be overweight, stigma feels like it would help strengthen other people’s resolve to eat less because it strengthens their own.” This result leads to weight stigma.

Those who aren’t stigmatized, cannot understood how it feels and instead base their own experience and believe it’s that way for everyone when it isn’t the same at all. In conclusion, weight stigma does not encourage people with above average weight to lose it. Instead, it does the opposite. Those who consider themselves overweight feel much more out of control eating and have an increase in calorie consumption. This led to what my paper was about, which was that both the media and stigmatization can lead to negative effects (health and psychological) on those who consider themselves overweight.