A study conducted by Professor James Stubbs, the chair of Behaviour Change and Weight Management at the University of Derby, has revealed that four in ten overweight persons complain of having suffered some sort of personal insult or abuse at least once a week – the survey was conducted on a group of over 2,500 who struggled to lose weight. The problems they encountered ranged from rude shop assistants in fashion chains laughing at the idea of people asking for larger sizes to supermarket staff commenting on what people have in their trolley.
It has been observed that overweight people are mocked or filmed in the street, while girls enjoying a night out have been targeted by groups of young men. Moreover, their opportunities to get a job or promotion – and so improve their lives – have invariably been blocked by discrimination because of weight problems.
Professor James Stubbs is Research Specialist at Slimming World and the survey covered a total of 2,573 persons to understand how people treated them before they lost weight.
It seems when at their heaviest, they suffered humiliations such as young people winding their car window down to shout abuse, fellow passengers refusing to share a seat on public transport, groups of men in nightclubs feigning romantic interest and teenagers taking pictures or videos on their smartphone.
When they went to purchase anything, they faced rude comments on their food choices from supermarket staff, laughter from shop assistants when they asked for clothes in a bigger size, and felt humiliated when the bar tenders served slimmer customers first even if they stood behind in the queue.
Such personal criticism does not motivate people to lose weight but, some 47per cent on the receiving end felt ashamed, 41per cent felt depressed and 30 per cent useless.
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