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Where Pounds and Inches Hurt the Most


Call it “weightism”, “lookism”, or just plain discrimination. The bias against the more “adiposity” challenged members of our society runs very deep and tends to leave them with lifetime scars far more pernicious than the potential medical risks associated with obesity. There’s evidence that obese individuals are denied educational opportunities, jobs, promotions, and housing because of their weight.

Disdain towards fat happens early in life. Both normal weight and overweight grade school children describe obese silhouettes as stupid, lazy, dirty, sloppy, mean, ugly, and sad. When presented with a choice between a friend who is handicapped, disfigured, or fat, the majority of children as young as three and four shun the fat child. Sadly, fat children do not differ from their peers in this regard. When asked by a researcher why he chose the fat child last, one little boy replied, “because he looks just like me!”

The New York Times reported a study conducted by Dr. Colleen Rand involving 47 formerly fat adults. All 47 stated they would prefer to be deaf, dyslexic, diabetic or suffer from heart disease or acne than to be fat. Ninety-one percent opted for amputation of arm or leg, and 89% considered blindness a lesser misfortunate. One patient said: “When you’re blind other people want to help you. No one wants to help you when you’re fat.”

As a specialist in the understanding and treatment of eating disorders, I have worked with clients with weights ranging from 50 to 650 pounds. What they have in common inside offsets the superficial differences in packaging. Pain is pain. However, the responses that they encounter from others often varies dramatically in accordance with their weight.

This blog series will focus on how a big self image will lead to lower self-esteem, how our standards of beauty have changed and negatively affected larger individuals, and my own experience wearing a fat suit to show how one’s body weight has an impact on perceptions by others and self-esteem.

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