According to a new survey released by Glamour magazine, women base their first opinion of other women on one key element: weight.
The study, which was conducted by Rebecca Puhl, Ph.D., of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. The study was made on behalf of Glamour.
Approximately 1,800 women, between the ages of 18 and 40, were asked to label a female stranger as either “thin” or “”overweight”. Then, participants were asked to choose key words that best described the stranger. Examples of descriptive words were given, such as “lazy” or “ambitious”.
Results showed that women called the unnamed overweight women “slow” six times more than they did a thin woman. When compared to thin women, overweight women were also called “sloppy” nine times more often, “undisciplined” 7 times more often and “lazy” 11 times more often.
Even though women were also given the choice of using “neither” to describe the strangers, fewer than fifty percent of the women used the word.
Thin women also took a descriptive pounding. When compared to their analysis of overweight women, participants were twice as likely to label a thin woman with such titles as “controlling”, “mean” and “bitchy”. Thin women were also four times more likely to be called “self-centered” and “vain”, while “superficial” and “conceited” were used 8 times more often than with the overweight women.
