Suffering From Discrimination Increases The Risk Of Death In Overweight People
That obesity can cause serious health problems is not new news, but a recent study published in Psychological Science states that Discrimination based on weight causes an increase in mortality of up to two thirds.
The psychological effects of this discrimination, whether due to ridicule or rejection by others, increase the likelihood that overweight people will participate in activities that contribute to maintaining or worsening their situation, such as not doing physical exercise or eating an unhealthy diet.
The discrimination suffered by overweight or obese people causes psychological damage
Angelina Sutin, a researcher at the 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 is true, 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 from 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 them, called “The Health and Retirement Study”, began in 1992 at the University of Michigan with the collaboration of the National Institute on Aging (United States) and had 13,962 participants. The other study, called “Midlife in the United States,” began in 1995 at the MacArthur Foundation Research Network and involved 5,070 subjects.
After considering the Body Mass Index (BMI), subjective health level, disease burden, depressive symptoms, smoking history, and physical activity level, researchers found that weight discrimination was associated with a more than 60 percent increase in the risk of death.
Regarding the study, Sutin concluded that “Regardless of BMI, discrimination based on weight causes an increased risk of mortality. “This is not because of weight, but because of the consequences of discrimination.”.
In previous research, Sutin and Terracciano have already shown that individuals who experience discrimination due to their excess body weight tend to remain obese, develop chronic health problems, and have lower life satisfaction. Data from the new study warn that discrimination is one of the main problems due to which people who are obese or overweight have a higher risk of dying.
Obesity and discrimination in today’s society
In a globalized world, being overweight has become a risk factor not only for health but also for personal dignity. The aesthetic culture has encouraged personal success to be associated with having a “body ten.” Since thinness is taken as a supreme value, Pathologies associated with body image are one of the main problems that psychologists encounter on a daily basis.as they affect many individuals, especially adolescents.
Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are growing alarmingly every day and, so far, prevention policies have achieved little to stop this phenomenon. The “collective madness” to achieve the ideal weight, It turns obese people 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 unreal aesthetics and beauty. Individuals who do not fit the parameters of this society of aesthetics are separated and marginalized. Social Darwinism, characteristic of Western societies, causes the obese to be seen as what one is afraid of and does not want to become.
This study demonstrates the negative consequences of being rejected for a weighty issue, and we must not forget that the obesity and overweight epidemic that is affecting developed societies has a social and political origin.. As much as obese individuals are blamed, we must stop seeing this problem as an individual phenomenon, in order to improve their quality of life. If we thought about improving collective well-being and not so much about the accumulation of wealth, this could be achieved.
