Weight discrimination raises the risk of death

That obesity can cause serious health problems is not new news, but a recent study published in Psychological Science she claims that weight-based discrimination leads to an increase in mortality of up to two-thirds.

The psychological effects of this discrimination, whether from teasing or rejection by others, increase the overweight people are likely to participate in activities that help maintain or worsen their situation, such as not exercising or eating unhealthy.

Discrimination against people who are overweight or obese causes psychological damage

Angelina Sutin, a researcher at Florida State University School of Medicine and co-director of this study, states that "Although some may think that if someone feels hurt due to discrimination, they will be motivated to lose weight and seek a healthier lifestyle, this is not true".

According to this research, the opposite occurs, as Sutin adds: "Our study has shown that this approach is not correct, since discrimination based on weight causes serious psychological problems in the person who suffers it".

The study data

The study was carried out by Angelina Sutin and Antonio Terracciano, it was published in Psychological Science and had a sample of more than 18,000 subjects. Data were extracted from two longitudinal studies.

The first of these, called “The Health and Retirement Study”, began in 1992 in the University of Michigan with the collaboration of the National Institute of Aging (United States) and had 13,962 participants. The other study, called "Midlife in the United States", was started in 1995 in the MacArthur Foundation Research Network and had the participation of 5,070 subjects.

Study conclusions

After considering the Body Mass Index (BMI), subjective health level, disease burden, depressive symptoms, the background of smoking and the level of physical activity, the researchers found that weight-based discrimination was associated with a more than 60 percent increased risk of death.

Regarding the study, Sutin concluded that “Regardless of BMI, discrimination based on weight causes an increase in the risk of mortality. This is not due to the weight, but because of the consequences of discrimination ".

In previous research, Sutin and Terracciano have already shown that individuals who experience discrimination on the basis of their excess body weight tend to remain obese, develop chronic health problems and have less satisfaction with lifetime. The data from the new study warn that discrimination is one of the main problems for which people with obesity or overweight have a higher risk of dying.

Obesity and discrimination in today's society

Being overweight in a globalized world has become a risk factor not only for health but also for personal dignity. The culture of aesthetics has favored associating personal success with having a "body ten." Since thinness is taken as a supreme value, pathologies associated with body image are one of the main problems psychologists encounter on a daily basis, as they affect many individuals, especially adolescents.

The eating disorders as the anorexy and the bulimia They grow alarmingly every day and, so far, prevention policies have achieved little to stop this phenomenon. The "collective madness" to achieve the ideal weight, turns the obese into strange beings, and they constantly suffer the humiliation and discrimination of a society that has become tremendously selfish and inconsiderate.

Increasingly, the logic of advertising and the media imposes on us a model of aesthetics and unreal beauty. Individuals who do not fit the parameters of this aesthetic society are set apart and marginalized. The social darwinism, characteristic of western societies, causes the obese to be seen as what they are afraid of and do not want to become.

This study demonstrates the negative consequences of being rejected for a matter of weight, and it should not be forgotten that the obesity and overweight epidemic that is affecting developed societies has a social and political origin. As much as obese individuals are blamed, it is necessary to stop seeing this problem as an individual phenomenon, in order to improve their quality of life. If we thought about improving the collective welfare and not so much about the accumulation of wealth, this could be achieved.