Fat Irony: The Unintended Consequences of Articles on How Bad It Is to Be Fat
"The results were straightforward – the articles stigmatizing fat people backfired. The women who saw themselves as overweight and who read the article about how bad it is to be fat actually ate more of the snacks than did the ones who read a similar article about how bad it is to smoke. They also felt less capable of controlling their eating. (It was the women’s perceptions of their weight that mattered, not their actual weight.)
The women who did not see themselves as fat did not eat any more calories if they read the fat-stigmatizing article. In contrast to the women who thought they were fat, these women actually felt that they had more control over their eating after reading the bad-to-be-fat article.
The authors suggest that people who do not see themselves as fat just don’t get it about people who do (though they say it in a nicer way than that). People who feel fine about their weight do not eat any more when they read about how bad it is to be fat, and they actually feel more in control of their eating. Maybe that makes them think that such articles would be effective at motivating fat people to lose weight. But instead, the opposite seems to be true."
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