title: Lonelier, lazier, and teased: the stigmatizing effect of body size.
abstract: The authors conducted 2 studies to examine the stigmatization of the female and male body using photographic stimuli of real people. In the first study, 75 female and 55 male undergraduates rated a series of 50 photographs of women ranging in body mass index (BMI) on 3 items: gets teased, lonely, and lazy. Both male and female observers rated bodies on either side of BMI 19-20 kg/m2 higher for the gets teased and lonely items. For the lazy item, there was a clear pattern of greater stigmatization with increasing BMI. In the second study, 40 male and 40 female observers rated a series of photographs of the male body that varied in BMI and waist-to-chest ratio on the same items. Results showed that men and women judged overweight and more tubular men to be lazier, lonelier, and teased. These findings suggest that body size is an important characteristic to consider when examining body stigmatization among men and women. These results also show support for the beautiful-is-good bias.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London W1B 2UW, England. v.swami@westminster.ac.uk
authors.forename: Viren
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Swami
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Furnham
authors.forename: Reena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amin
authors.forename: Jahanara
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chaudhri
authors.forename: Kiran
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Shyma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jundi
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mirza-Begum
authors.forename: Fateha Nisha
authors.initials: FN
authors.lastname: Begum
authors.forename: Pinal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sheth
authors.forename: Martin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Tovée
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D049628:Body Size; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology*; D011287:Prejudice; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D006113:United Kingdom