Weight stigma, weight bias, weight-ism and weight-based discrimination are all terms used to identify the act of characterising someone based upon their weight (usually at the extremes of under- or -over). In our culture under-weight people are often perceived as harsh, controlling and cold, whereas over-weight people are perceived as indolent, inconsistent and permissive. These stereo-typical memes (essentially a virus of the mind) permeate through our society to such an extent that they have been shown to have a large effect on how we socially and economically interact. For instance it has been shown that being overweight, regardless of ability, has a negative consequence on success at job interviews, promotions, pay raises and many other aspects in careers.
Our culture shapes our reality much more than is appreciated. Culture is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society. It’s an information construct. The information you receive becomes your reality.
Your most sacred, intimate beliefs, including your belief in a creator(s) was taught to you by someone else. Had you been born into a different culture, you would now hold different beliefs and worship different god(s). But, you would feel just as certain about those beliefs as the beliefs you hold now. In both cases the source of many of these beliefs are a long forgotten mystery, yet they are still as potent, if not more so, than at their inception. The ambiguous residual traces of memes often cause more damage than the original because the uncertainty that builds in over time allows for biased interpretation. Thus it is prudent to be discerning to whom we give our minds.
The media makes great use of this cultural influence to shape our thoughts and views on the world. The newspapers, television and internet, all forms of virtual reality, constantly bombard us with images, icons and other material that changes our perception of reality. If we use this unexamined content as the basis of our learning, then we simply become a manipulated pawn in a game we don’t even know we are playing.
Overweight, whether as a cause or a consequence of disease, is a health concern. However the current trend of fat-shaming is not only vile, but it doesn’t help overweight individuals rectify the situation (which I’m assuming is the purpose of fat-shaming - it couldn’t just be venom projected from un-enlightened, insecure, unsophisticated minds, could it?).
A recent study has supported the hypothesis that the hyper-phagia* (over-eating) often seen in overweight individuals is not only a result of brain circuits damaged by specific foodstuffs (especially hyper-palatable foods processed to contain the magic combination of salt, sugar and fat), but also that the ability to control the evolutionary urges to consume these foods is diminished due to this culturally generated perception of image.
The study looked at how a weight-stigmatising environment affected an individual’s ability to control themselves in regards to food. Women were randomly assigned to read a news article about stigma faced by overweight individuals in the job market or a control article. Exposure to weight-stigmatising news articles caused self-perceived overweight women, but not women who did not perceive themselves as overweight, to consume more calories and feel less capable of controlling their eating than exposure to non-stigmatising articles. Weight-stigmatising articles also increased concerns about being a target of stigma among both self-perceived overweight and non-overweight women.
The self-perception of individuals who perceive themselves as overweight alters the way the brain functions. When individuals who perceive themselves as overweight are exposed to an environment where they are made to feel shame, guilt and other negative emotions, the body initiates a stress response. The stress response is a very ancient and powerful set of processes, mediated mostly by the R-complex (our reptilian brain) and limbic system (paleo-mammalian brain) that served us well in our evolutionary past to handle dangerous situations and drive us to seek out food. The problem is when activated these areas over-ride our higher brain functions.
The higher brain functions are mediated by the neo-mammalian brain. Among these higher functions is the ability to regulate and control behaviour by using reasoning, problem solving and planning. For instance, if we were presented with a chocolate cake, but know that it was at odds with our current goals, using the executive functions would allow us to regulate ourselves by reasoning that ‘If I eat this cake now, it won’t help me reach my goal, so I shall politely decline’. However if the brain is in a highly stressed state, this process does not occur or is at least severely inhibited, and thus the regulatory brakes are taken off and the action of devouring the cake is literally a no-brainer.
A key finding of this study was that the actual body-size of the individual wasn’t as impactful as was the perception of body-size, which ties directly into our observation of how the contemporary bed-fellows of media and industry manufacture an ever more encompassing environment where we are subjected to powerful influences on our perceptions which in-turn influence our behavioural autonomy.
If I were of a more cynical mind, I would suggest that the roots of this culture of fat-shaming and fit-spiration may have more to do with contrived market forces to get you to consume, consume, consume, than an honest attempt at promoting health.
*The same neural stimulation in the hypothalamic-limbic-pituit
Reference:
Brenda Major, Jeffrey M. Hunger, Debra Bunyan, Carol T. Miller, The Ironic Effects of Weight Stigma, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Available online 1 December 2013, ISSN 0022-1031, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
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