Hello fluffydice-ga,
You have chosen a very interesting topic for your dissertation. You
will be glad to see that there are lots of resources relating to the
subject of the social repercussions of obesity discrimination. I’ve
collected a selection of web sites that offer scholarly research to
get you started. In addition, since the legal issues involved with
obesity discrimination are slowly evolving, I’ve also included some
links that help you review this aspect of this enormous topic.
The recent attention to obesity as a public health concern is also
generating a lot of articles in the popular press that will help you
illustrate how societal discrimination because of weight is manifested
in the arenas of social acceptance, employment, health care and
educational discrimination.
I wish you well for a successful and speedy dissertation.
~ czh ~
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OBESITY PORTALS, DIRECTORIES, ORGANIZATIONS, PUBLICATIONS
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http://www.obesityresearch.org/
Obesity Research Online
· Published by The North American Association for the Study of
Obesity
· ISSN # 1071-7323
· This journal is published 12 times a year
· This journal is peer-reviewed
***** See selective archives available from 1 Jan 1993 - 1 Oct 2003
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http://www.naaso.org/
North American Association for the Study of Obesity
The North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO) is the
leading scientific society dedicated to the study of obesity. Since
1982 NAASO has been committed to encouraging research on the causes
and treatment of obesity, and to keeping the medical community and
public informed of new advances.
***** See especially the Links Library and listing of Research
Institutions.
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http://www.nature.com/ijo/
Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity
Audience
Clinicians and researchers working in obesity, diabetes and related
disorders, dietetics, psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, metabolic
function, biochemistry, physiology, molecular biology and genetics.
Scope
Multi-disciplinary forum for research describing: basic clinical and
applied studies in biochemistry, physiology, genetics and nutrition,
molecular, metabolic, psychological and epidemiological aspects of
obesity and related disorders.
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http://www.nursefriendly.com/nursinglinks/directpatientcare/obesity.morbid.overweight.weight.loss/links/obesitydiscriminationresearch.html
Nursing & Healthcare Directories on: The Nursefriendly Obesity,
Overweight, Morbid, Weight Loss Resources Obesity Discrimination
Research
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http://www.yale.edu/rudd/
http://www.yale.edu/rudd/research.html
The Rudd Institute
The Rudd Institute’s mission is to document, understand, and
ameliorate the bias, stigma and discrimination associated with
obesity.
***** The Research publications are especially pertinent to your
question. I’ve included links to a sampling below.
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https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/obesity/www/home.htm
Project Implicit -- Implicit Association Test
People often have attitudes, feelings, or beliefs that occur outside
their conscious awareness. These automatic thoughts and feelings may
be different than the feelings we are aware of, and yet they may
affect our behaviors. Scientists have looked for ways to identify and
understand automatically generated associations and have examined how
they may be linked to other attitudes and behaviors.
This web site presents a method for learning about how we
unconsciously link characteristics with certain groups of people. This
method is presented in a do-it-yourself demonstration form and is
called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.
In addition to the online study, this site contains various related
information. The value of the studies may be greatest if you try the
IAT by reading preliminary information about the available IAT
studies, to help you decide whether or not to try them.
***** This site offers an extensive library of resources in
association with The Rudd Institute.
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http://www.cswd.org/
Council on Size & Weight Discrimination
The Council on Size & Weight Discrimination is a not-for-profit group
which works to change people's attitudes about weight. We act as
consumer advocates for larger people, especially in the areas of
medical treatment, job discrimination, and media images.
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http://www.cswd.org/bbl.html
Bibliographies
***** There is an extensive list of resources under each heading in
the list of bibliographies.
Body Image
Children and Teenagers
Eating Disorders
Feminism
Food, Exercise, and Health
Health and Weight
Media Images
Medical Discrimination
Men and Weight
Non-Diet Approaches
Weight Discrimination
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http://www.obesity.org/
American Obesity Association (ASO)
The mission of the AOA is to act as an agent of change, move society
to re-conceptualize obesity as a disease and to fashion appropriate
strategies to deal with the epidemic.
Currently, the perception of obesity is one of failure of the
individual. We want to change that perception to one that recognizes
obesity as a complex disease involving more than personal behavior,
such as our environment and genetic heritage.
The AOA's programmatic areas of activity include:
Education
Research
Prevention
Treatment
Consumer Protection
Discrimination and Stigma
***** The links under Discrimination (Employment, Health Care,
Education) are especially useful and provide links to a variety of
research reports and articles.
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http://www.bigfatblog.com/
Big Fat Blog is a site devoted to fat acceptance. BFB provides a
strong, supportive environment for those interested in issues related
to fat people. But it is important to note that BFB is not a weight
loss site of any kind; in fact, weight loss talk here is prohibited.
***** This site offers current discussions about obesity
discrimination and social pressures. The Links and Resources are also
interesting.
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http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/
Wiley Interscience Provides Web-Based Access to Publications from
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
It features over 1,000 journals, major reference works, online books,
Current Protocols laboratory manuals, and databases as well as a suite
of professional and management resources. The site was launched in
1997 and currently caters to over 12 million users in 87 countries.
***** There are a variety of pricing options, including pay-per-view.
Since you’re working on your dissertation, you may be able to get
institutional access.
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OBESITY DISCRIMINATION – LEGAL ISSUES
=====================================
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/hunger/2003/0804obese.htm
Obese People Are Taking Their Bias Claims to Court
By Steven Greenhouse -- New York Times -- August 4, 2003
Twenty-seven percent of Americans are obese, and that percentage is
climbing, a statistic that shows up in the news day after day, often
coupled with criticism of fast-food purveyors like McDonald's. But
legal experts say that despite the surge in the overweight population,
the law offers few protections against discrimination based on weight.
While the nation's fair-employment laws bar discrimination based on
race, religion, color, sex or age, those laws generally do not
prohibit employers from discriminating based on physical appearance,
whether it is the color of one's hair or the circumference of one's
waist. Some advocates for the overweight say this discrimination has
grown even worse as more employers focus on hiring good-looking
people.
In most employment-discrimination cases involving obese plaintiffs,
courts have ruled that obesity is not a disability and that employers
are free to discriminate against overweight people. But some courts
have concluded that people with morbid obesity — usually defined as
having twice the recommended body weight for one's height — have a
disability and that discriminating against them violates the Americans
With Disabilities Act.
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http://www.businessleader.com/bl/dec01/t3-weightdiscrimination.html
Tools, Trends, & Tactics
Weighing In On Weight Discrimination
The media regularly reports that Americans are getting heavier. The
American Obesity Association states on its web site that 55% of
American adults are categorized as obese or overweight. Obesity is
known to be unhealthy and it can substantially increase risk for many
disabling conditions such as: diabetes, heart disease, stroke, gall
bladder disease, and some forms of cancer. But is obesity itself a
disability? Increasingly, courts are faced with this question as
weight-based discrimination lawsuits are filed. Thus far, most cases
involving employment issues have held that obesity alone is not a
disability.
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http://www.cswd.org/disclaws.html
Anti-Weight-Discrimination Laws
***** This is a short list of federal, state and local legislation
impacting on weight discrimination.
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http://www.obesitylaw.com/
Obesity Law and Advocacy Center
***** The FAQ and Articles sections are especially helpful.
=================================================
REPORTS AND ARTICLES ABOUT OBESITY DISCRIMINATION
=================================================
http://www.yale.edu/rudd/pdf/bias_discrimination_and.pdf
Bias, Discrimination and Obesity
Rebecca Puhl and Kelly D. Brownell
Obesity Research Vol. 9 No. 12, December 2001
This article reviews information on discriminatory attitudes and
behaviors against obese individuals, integrates this to show whether
systematic discrimination occurs and why, and discusses needed work in
the field. Clear and consistent stigmatization, and in some cases
discrimination, can be documented in three important areas of living:
employment, education, and health care. Among the findings are that
28% of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst
thing that can happen to a person; 24% of nurses said that they are
"repulsed" by obese persons; and, controlling for income and grades,
parents provide less college support for their overweight than for
their thin children. There are also suggestions but not yet
documentation of discrimination occurring in adoption proceedings,
jury selection, housing, and other areas. Given the vast numbers of
people potentially affected, it is important to consider the
research-related, educational, and social policy implications of these
findings.
***** This is an 18-page research report with a 141 item bibliography.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=11743063
Bias, discrimination, and obesity.
Puhl R, Brownell KD.
***** See list of 128 Related Articles from PubMed.
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http://www.kaiserpermanente.org/medicine/permjournal/sum03/stigma.html
Stigma and Discrimination in Weight Management and Obesity
By Kelly D Brownell, PhD; Rebecca Puhl
We have been studying bias and discrimination in obesity for four
years and have found striking results. Clear discrimination against
overweight people has been documented in three areas: education,
health care, and employment. The reason for this appears to be very
strong anti-fat attitudes. For example, 28% of teachers in one study1
said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a
person; 24% of nurses said they are 'repulsed' by obese persons; and,
controlling for income and grades, parents provide less college
support for their overweight children than for their thin children.
***** This is a short summary of this Puhl and Brownell’s research
report.
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http://www.yale.edu/rudd/pdf/weight_bias_among.pdf
Weight Bias among health professionals specializing in obesity.
Schwartz, M. B., O’Neal, H., Brownell, K. D., Blair, S., & Billington,
C. (2003).
Obesity Research, 11, 1033–1039.
Purpose: To determine the level of anti-fat bias in health
professionals specializing in obesity and identify personal
characteristics that correlate with both implicit and explicit bias.
Research Methods and Procedures: The Implicit Associations Test (IAT)
and a self-report questionnaire assessing explicit attitudes, personal
experiences with obesity, and demographic characteristics was
administered to clinicians and researchers attending the opening
session of an inter-national obesity conference (N _ 389).
Discussion: Even professionals whose careers emphasize research or the
clinical management of obesity show very strong weight bias,
indicating pervasive and powerful stigma. Understanding the extent of
anti-fat bias and the personal characteristics associated with it will
aid in developing intervention strategies to ameliorate these damaging
attitudes.
***** This is a 7-page paper that highlights that health professionals
are as likely to discriminate against their obese patients as the
general population.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=12972672
Weight bias among health professionals specializing in obesity.
Schwartz MB, Chambliss HO, Brownell KD, Blair SN, Billington C.
***** See list of 103 Related Articles from PubMed.
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The Post and Courier
Sunday, November 5, 2000
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST OBESITY IS WIDESPREAD
Carey Goldberg - New York Times Columnist
Though most fat people lack special laws to protect them, they are
increasingly taking discriminators to court, experts say.
The case law on obesity discrimination has accumulated to the point
that a book about it came out this year, Tipping the Scales of
Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination by Sondra Solovay, a
lawyer in Berkeley, Calif. It argues that "discrimination against fat
people is the civil rights hurdle of the new millennium."
Perhaps the trickiest question is whether obesity should be considered
a disability. Courts have ruled that the Americans With Disabilities
Act provides protection in some cases, particularly those concerning
highly obese people, but not in others.
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573927643/103-1487238-9644641?v=glance&vi=customer-reviews
Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight Based Discrimination
by Sondra Solovay
***** The book gets mixed reviews but might be worth a look.
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http://www.thirdage.com/news/archive/ALT02031021-02.html
Discrimination Against the Overweight
By Daniel Q. Haney
In the English study, psychologist Jason Halford and colleagues from
the University of Liverpool tested 144 female students' reactions to
two prom photos. One showed a dapper, thin young fellow standing next
to a svelte ringlet-haired woman. The other was the same photo altered
to show the guy arm-in-arm with a very large, nicely dressed woman.
The volunteers took a quick look at one or the other of the pictures
and then were asked their opinion of the man. They rated him from 1 to
5 on 50 negative adjectives -- called the "fat phobia scale" -- that
people often use to describe obese people.
The man with the big woman was rated 22 percent more negatively than
the same fellow with the thin companion. When seen with the large
woman, he was more likely to be described as miserable,
self-indulgent, passive, shapeless, depressed, weak, insignificant and
insecure.
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http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2002-09-04-overweight-pay-bias_x.htm
Obesity can mean less pay
By Del Jones, USA TODAY
The paychecks of obese workers are, on average, about 2.5% less than
the paychecks of their thinner counterparts in the same professions, a
new study says.
And the wage penalty is much greater for overweight women — as much as
6.2% — according to the study submitted to the journal Health
Economics.
Obese workers who are paid $1.25 less an hour over a 40-year career
wind up with $100,000 less before taxes, says co-author William Ford,
an economics professor at Middle Tennessee State University and a
former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
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http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/76504085/ABSTRACT
Effects of exposure to information about appearance stereotyping and
discrimination on women's body images
Melissa Ann Lavin, Thomas F. Cash *
International Journal of Eating Disorders
Volume 29, Issue 1 , Pages 51 - 58
Published Online: 19 Dec 2000
Objective
There is widespread public dissemination of research findings and
media messages regarding social advantages of physical attractiveness
and liabilities of unattractiveness. The purpose of this experimental
study was to determine the effects of such information on women's
body-image experiences.
***** The full article is available by subscription or “pay-per-view”
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http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2002-04-11/news.asp
Public health vs. personal freedom
How can we discourage obesity without contributing to negative social
stigmas of fat people?
The idea was to convey the message: It’s OK to be overweight. And
through most of its history, that mission seemed to make sense,
especially during a period in which popular concerns about body image
focused on the dangers of anorexia and bulimia, in which people were
literally dying to be skinny.
But in recent years, the paradigm has shifted, as the public health
community sounds the alarm that our fast-food culture is creating a
new kind of health crisis. Beginning last year with a groundbreaking
report on obesity by the U.S. Surgeon General, and continuing through
currently proposed legislation to tax soda pop to fund anti-obesity
campaigns, the idea that “it’s OK to be overweight” is being
challenged.
The Surgeon General’s report on obesity and overweight detailed
specific risks associated with obesity, citing that “approximately
300,000 deaths a year in this country are currently associated with
overweight and obesity.” Some of the health risks include an increased
risk for coronary heart disease, diabetes, strokes, asthma, several
types of cancer and certain musculoskeletal disorders such as
osteoarthritis.
“Individuals who are obese,” the report states, “have a 50 to 100
percent increased risk of premature death from all causes compared to
individuals with a BMI (body mass index) in a normal range.”
Clearly this is an emotionally charged issue and there is a great deal
of debate among Americans surrounding the issues of obesity,
discrimination, the role of government and the concept of what being
healthy truly entails. Advocates at every corner of the issue are
passionate in their beliefs and weight-related issues continue to
permeate our sense of social and individual consciousness.
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SEARCH STRATEGY
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obesity discrimination
Obesity Research |
