Women 'have inbuilt fear of being fat'

[Still Waters]

Women have an inbuilt fear of being fat which is triggered when they see an overweight female stranger, but men have no such reflex, scientists say.

Brain scans of women who were shown pictures of overweight strangers triggers activity in a part of the brain that processes identity and self-reflection.

The results show how women are conditioned to be afraid of being fat because they are constantly bombarded with messages and images of thin being the ideal.

But the same tests done on men revealed they showed no interest in their own weight indicating why women are much closer to developing eating disorders.

Read more...

[Esoteric Toad]

Wow, when I go grocery shopping I see LOTS of people that have completely overcome that fear.

[Indiogene]

This is more about social psychology than gender stereotypes, but Women are thought to be more self-conscious on appearance than man, and the fear of weight gain is more from the high beauty standards of males seeking her a potential mate. The phenomena is solely based in the 20th century than any other time period, inflammed by the mass media by photos and televised images, seem to overemphasized beautiful women must be less than size 4. Over a century or so ago, a fat woman or a bigger, plump size was the sign of elite wealth for having enough food to eat and you can find nude large woman paintings from Eric Gaugain, Vincent Van Gogh and others in any major city arts museums. The issue on women avoiding weight gain or want to obsessively lose "baby fat" weight after having children is what brings fierce sociopolotical debate among feminists and the medical community, whom are better educated in body weight studies than the mass media modeling agency...are generating more of this fear onto women.

[Sthenno]

I'm not convinced this study proves too much about women's attitude to weight... I think it might say more about women's tendency to compare themselves to others in general. I would be interested to see if similar results were produced by images of a woman with, say, a bad haircut, or terrible dress sense.

[Purplos]

The results show how women are conditioned to be afraid of being fat because they are constantly bombarded with messages and images of thin being the ideal.

At the risk of sounding juvenile... no, duh.

If anyone is constantly told how bad something is, they are not going to want to become it.

I want tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to come to a logical conclusion that affects the worlds not one iota. Must be the most stress-free job in the world... coming up with and performing these studies.

[sp840tril]

Wow, when I go grocery shopping I see LOTS of people that have completely overcome that fear.

Couldn't agree more. A lot of american women do not show any signs of this fear, in other words there are a lot of tub women waddling around neighborhoods.

[Stormcrow]

That doesn't make sense. Some civilizations prize large women, they have for eons, and not just for social status but because they were believed to have proper child-bearing assets. Skinnier women were believed to be very poor mothers. I've also read studies that say children prefer larger women (or even "average" women) to skinny, stick-like women (that the media says is healthy) because of their "kinder", more motherly appearance. I think this article is completely backwards.

Edited April 17, 2010 by ebonycrow

[LostInTheWoods]

If it's caused by media conditioning, it's not "inbuilt" is it? This article is patronizing and insulting and I do not take well to it.