Weight Discrimination—Why People Always Look Down on Fat Ladies?

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When we see an obese woman on the street, in a restaurant, or out shopping, we often have an instinctive negative reaction: What's wrong with her that she can't lose weight? Even knowing that some people have a chronic condition or genetic makeup that predisposes them to weight gain, we still criticize them. "People are enraged at fat people because of the very strong Puritan ideal that we should control our desires," says Esther Rothblum, Ph.D., a psychologist and a professor of Women's Studies at San Diego State University, who is an expert on weight discrimination. "They see fat people, especially women, as lazy gluttons who lack self-control." However, those attitudes are so widespread, Rothblum says, that even fat people share them. Given that 53.3 percent of American adults (2013)—roughly 154.7 million of us—are overweight or obese (American Heart Stroke Association); in other words, half of Americans are suffering from prejudice and striving to escape from the cage of obesity. But what raise these discriminations among the society? One of the undeniable reasons that influence women’s confidence is the opinions of society. Nowadays, media play a huge part in a preconceived idea of how individuals should look, in that they influence the ways individuals view themselves and others. Weight-based discrimination is seen everywhere, from the television, magazines and newspapers. Take fashion magazines for example, many teen girls view those pretty models in the magazine as their ideal image. As a result, they desire for attractive and charming outward appearances. Owing to the fact that the celebrities are in constant scrutiny over how they look and what their weight is, part of celebrities uses extreme diet to keep in shape, which leads to the misunderstanding that going on an extreme diet is an effective way of attaining the industry-standard body type (Influence

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