Could weight bias serve a positive function, like motivating obese people to lose weight?
When presenting on weight stigma to professionals, community groups, teachers, and physicians, we have been asked the question, “Isn’t stigma helpful in motivating weight loss?” Research suggests the opposite is true. Studies have shown an increase in weight stigmatization over the past 40 years – the same period during which the prevalence of obesity has increased so dramatically. This is a correlational observation but does not support the idea that stigma helps. There is some evidence that weight bias may actually contribute to obesity. Recent studies show that weight bias leads to unhealthy eating behaviors. For example, overweight girls and boys who experience frequent weight-based teasing are more likely to engage in unhealthy weight control and binge eating than overweight girls and boys who were not teased about their weight. One prospective study of more than 2000 adolescents, found that that weight-based teasing predicted binge eating 5 years later among both males and female
