Trustworthy obese men and ugly fat women: how does the double standard work when assessing overweight?
Strong, capable men...
While extra pounds in particular can still be an (acceptable!) reason for discrimination even in today's society, which strives for fairness at all levels, practice shows that being overweight is not always a burden. "In contrast to research that emphasises the stigma attached to being overweight, we found that the anthropological concept of 'big men' can have a quite literal meaning," say the authors of a new study mapping the impact of being overweight on the lives of men and women. However, as the study also shows, the label 'big/big' has very different implications for men and women. Men benefit from the extra pounds, but for women it is primarily a sign of physical unattractiveness.
...and unattractive overweight women
Judging other people according to their physical features is of course quite common - that is why research that assesses certain "deviations" from the accepted standard is based on a similar principle - respondents judge people according to their physical constitution, appearance, skin colour etc. and attribute certain characteristics to them. In the case of being overweight, persuasiveness, influence and leadership proved to be crucial. According to the assessors, people with extra pounds have these qualities. But not all of them - when the researchers looked at women and men separately, they found that only obese men were convincing and credible.
"Explaining these gender differences would require a separate set of targeted studies. But the reason could be that overweight women still carry on their shoulders the burden of societal expectations associated with perceptions of physical beauty," says one of the researchers, Kevin M. Kniffin. The results of analyses that assess the extent to which gender differences in bias are present are also consistent with this view. Indeed, as a person's body weight begins to increase, so does the amount of discrimination he or she faces - and women are much more likely to face condemnation.
"Although women and men are equally susceptible to the stigma and discrimination associated with being overweight, today's society has very strict ideals about the physical attractiveness of women. So when women deviate from these expected ideals and their bodies are simply larger than the 'norm' in the eyes of others, they usually face various forms of penalisation," says Rebecca Puhl, who is director of the US Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Women with extra pounds face greater discrimination in job interviews, for example, because they are considered less desirable in the workplace. And when they do get a job, they will earn less and be less likely to be promoted than obese men.
Researchers have even seen a similar metric in the political field - in fact, research from 2010 found that overweight male candidates are rated more positively than their obese female counterparts. "The ability of obese female candidates may depend much less on their political positions or even party membership and more on their physical characteristics," the research summarizes.
Are the extra pounds worth it?
While it's clear that there are sometimes some benefits to being overweight (at least if one is male), researchers agree that even the positive qualities associated with (male) obesity do not outweigh the much larger problem of weight discrimination. "Our research certainly does not suggest that men should gain weight to be more persuasive. It just calls for acknowledging the benefits that can also come from obesity (in addition to all its negative impacts on human life)," the research team concludes.
