BIAS AGAINST OBESITY IS STILL LEGAL (2-2003)

In the United States there are laws that protect people 
against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religious 
beliefs, national origin, and disability. Some states and 
localities have also added sexual orientation to that list. 

But there is no such legal protection against 
discrimination for people who are overweight or obese. It 
is perfectly legal to discriminate against a fat person 
solely on the grounds of their weight. Being obese is also 
not considered a disability according to the Americans with 
Disabilities Act.

Whether or not obesity should be added to the list of 
protected characteristics is up for debate. But a new study 
indicates that many people do indeed have a negative bias 
against fat people, even if they do not think they do.

Dr. Bethany A. Teachman and her colleagues discovered, 
using a word association technique, that those who say they 
do not have negative feelings toward fat people actually do 
in many cases. These negative stereotypes about the 
overweight were present even among the people in the study 
group who were told that obesity usually results from a 
person’s genetic makeup, and not due to over-indulgence.

Overweight people are discriminated against in many aspects 
of their lives. They continually have to put up with stares 
and whispered remarks. “One possibility is that despite our 
best intentions to be tolerant and nonjudgmental, we are 
still greatly affected by the cultural message that being 
overweight is a moral weakness, and messages that 
negatively portray overweight people in the media,” 
Teachman said.

She also said that another possibility is that people often 
don’t report what they know they are feeling because they 
realize that feeling that way is wrong. It’s a sort of 
denial syndrome.

Many people fail to realize that losing weight is just as 
difficult for the obese as quitting smoking is for the 
smoker, or stopping drinking is for the alcoholic. The vast 
majority of overweight people are overweight due to a 
genetic variation that was evolutionarily adaptive for our 
distant ancestors who had to put up with frequent periods 
of famine. But in today’s society of plentiful food and 
“supersized” meals, our genes work against us.

Still, even realizing that obesity is often genetically 
controlled, people still couldn’t help, and often didn’t 
realize, how they perceived fat people. One aspect of a 
similar study even predicted how far away from a fat person 
another person would choose to sit, such as in a theater or 
auditorium.

The researchers suggested that changing the negative 
perceptions toward overweight people might be possible by 
employing the same techniques used in the past to curb 
prejudice against blacks. These include displaying posters 
depicting images of positive African-American role models 
to help people overcome their unconscious race biases.

Discouraging “fat jokes” and encouraging more education 
about what makes people overweight was also recommended, as 
was changing the way that fat people are depicted in TV 
shows and movies. “I hope that we will continue to see 
changes in the media's presentation of overweight persons,” 
Teachman said.

Being overweight is no fun. I know that from personal 
experience. It slows you down, ruins your health, makes it 
difficult to fit into places, and sets you up for 
discrimination that is still legal. If it were easy to lose 
weight, or avoid becoming overweight in the first place, 
and if willpower was all it took, no one would be fat.

It’s difficult to change ingrained perceptions. People will 
think what they want. But they need to realize the real 
reason behind why there is a growing number of obese 
Americans. If people understood the genetic connection, 
they may still subconsciously react negatively to fat 
people, but they would realize that their initial shudder 
was unwarranted. 

Perhaps then the “fat jokes” would become socially taboo. 
Who knows, fat people might even eventually gain some legal 
protection against discrimination.