October 30, 2009
Q. Obesity's health effects are bad enough but what about its “toxic” social side effects? Fat chance you're going to like the answer to this one.
A. Begin with the unfair stereotype of the overweight as slow, lazy, sloppy, says David G. Myers in “Psychology in Everyday Life.” When people's images are made artificially bigger on a video monitor, observers suddenly rate them as less sincere and friendly, meaner and more obnoxious. As for money, in one study of 370 obese 16- to 24-year-old women, two-thirds were still obese seven years later and were earning $7,000 a year less than an equally intelligent comparison group of 5,000 non-obese women. In fact, overweight applicants are less likely to be hired, less likely to receive a promotion or to get compensation in tough times. Anti-fat prejudice even extends to job seekers who are SEEN WITH an obese person. To top all of this, the overweight are also less likely to eventually marry.
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