90 The Meaning of Size
judged them stupid, 90 percent unsuccessful, 90 percent weak, 86 percent
lazy, 69 percent not nice, 65 percent unhappy, 60 percent weak-willed,
54 percent ugly, and 55 percent awkward. Therefore, in the same way that
gender is associated with a range of personality and behavioral traits, the
physical characteristic of size similarly triggers a stereotype.
Research has also evaluated how young we are when we acquire these
beliefs. In 1969, Lerner and Gellert showed drawings of different-sized adults
to groups of 5- and 10-year-old children. The adults were thin, medium,
or overweight. The children were then asked to describe what kind of
person the adult would be. The children associated the medium-sized adults
with all the positive qualities and the thin and fat adults with all the negative
qualities. In a further experiment, the researchers presented the children
with five drawings of children: a handicapped child, a child with facial
disfigurement, a child with crutches and a leg brace, a child with an
amputated left forearm, and an obese child. The children were then asked,
“Tell me which boy (girl) you like the best.” All the children rated the obese
child as the one they liked least. Wadden and Stunkard (1985) also studied
children’s beliefs about obesity and reported that obese children are
regarded as lazy, dirty, stupid, ugly, cheats, and liars by their peers. It has
been argued that children develop negative stereotypes of the obese as early
as 6 years of age (Staffieri, 1967) and that such attributions remain rela-
tively constant through to adulthood regardless of level of education
(Wooley, Wooley, and Dyrenforth, 1979). Some research has also explored
how stereotypes may impact upon the obese individual. In particular, research
has examined the role of teasing in both childhood and adulthood. For
example, Matz et al. (2002) reported that adult teasing predicted body image
dissatisfaction in a group of obese women seeking weight reduction. Similarly,
Stormer and Thompson (1996) described how social comparison and a
history of teasing related to body dissatisfaction and eating disturbance in
students, and similar results were reported for a sample of obese adults
(Grilo et al., 1994).
Qualitative literatureThe meaning of size is also illustrated in the more qualitative research and
in the psychoanalytic writings about eating disorders. Orbach has written
extensively about the meaning of thinness in the context both of dieting
and of eating disorders (1978, 1986), arguing that thinness and body weight
represent a range of meanings and that “how women see and experience