Researchers at Chapman University, UCLA and Stanford University have conducted a study revealing how the media influence the perception of obesity.
The research, co-authored by David Frederick of Chapman University, Abigail Saguy of UCLA and Kjerstin Gruys of Stanford, conducted three experiments with UCLA students and exposed them to news articles framing positive and negative perceptions of obesity.
“What we wanted to see is how these different frames affected fat people,” said David Frederick, assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University and lead author on the study.
Exposure to the four articles, also referred to as frames, measured people’s impact on “their prejudice and willingness to discriminate against fat men and women, (and) their support for obesity-related policies. It’s actually changing their support as they read these news articles,” he said.
“‘Fat rights’ articles swayed readers more towards social understanding and acceptance of overweight and obese people; whereas ‘public health crisis’ and ‘personal responsibility’ perpetuated an intolerant and negative image of these people,” Frederick said. “‘Health at every size’ articles did not produce a statistically significant decrease in prejudice.
“There’s a lot of news reporting on obesity and especially medical research, but there are different ways that different reporters talk about it and the way different researchers talk about obesity,” Frederick added.
The “fat rights” frame comes from civil rights activists who argue there is a stigma against overweight – some say fat – people in the United States, and that the stigma leads to poor treatment, not only in the workplace and daily life but also from medical professionals and doctors, he said.
“They argue that really we shouldn’t have any negative attitudes towards fat men and women, that a lot of medical research underlying obesity is really misleading and that fat itself isn’t particularly harmful across most of the weight spectrum.”
Fat rights activists are reclaiming the word “fat” because, “There’s nothing inherently good or bad about the word ‘fat,’” Frederick said. “It’s just a neutral descriptor like ‘white,’ ‘black’ (or) ‘tall’, whereas something like ‘overweight’ automatically implies someone is already in a negative category.”
“You can be fit but fat. If you are in the overweight category but you exercise frequently, you’re going to be as healthy or healthier than someone who is normal weight and doesn’t exercise much. Really, the relevant factors here are dietary choice, poverty and exercise,” he said.
“People with lower incomes have higher BMI and worse health,” he added. “If you’re poor, you have less access to affordable healthy food (and) you have greater access to fast-food restaurants.”
“There’s a concern that these ‘public health crisis’ and ‘personal responsibility’ articles either create more prejudice or enable people to hold on to their prejudices, and we know from a lot of social psychology research that if you tell someone that a negative trait is under personal control, it’s a person’s fault,” Frederick said. “Perceived control of the scenario really impacts prejudice.”
The research highlighted an ethical issue, Frederick said. “When news media is covering medical reports, it’s important to emphasize that discrimination is not acceptable, that there are a lot people who controlling weight is difficult or not possible. Otherwise, you run the risk of increasing prejudice or maintaining a high level of prejudice.”
The test subjects also were presented with images of women with a BMI – body mass index, a value derived from the weight and height of an individual – between 26 and 45 and were asked whether they believed theses women could be healthy at such weights.
The articles significantly affected people’s opinions the most on “obese one,” an image of a woman with a BMI of 31-35, he added, which represents 68.8 percent of the U.S. population that is overweight or obese, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The way the news media reports on obesity has a demonstrable effect on how people feel about obesity, and their willingness to discriminate and express prejudice,” Frederick concluded.
“I think there’s a message for all of us.”
Contact the writer: cgamboa@ocregister.com
