ABSTRACT

Prejudice against heavyweight people is prevalent, powerful, and potent. As with many other prejudices, the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination aimed at people on the basis of their weight can have a powerful effect on their lives. In this chapter, we review evidence revealing that differential treatment on the basis of weight occurs in all the major domains of heavyweight people’s lives, with strong consequences for achievement, self-esteem, career opportunities, friendships, and physical and mental health (see Brownell, Puhl, Schwartz, & Rudd, 2005, for a book-length review of many of these issues). Prejudice against heavyweight people is much like other prejudices-it limits opportunities; is associated with a negative stereotype; and prototypically involves the domination of powerful, unstigmatized individuals or groups over stigmatized, less powerful individuals or groups. In many ways, however, prejudice against heavyweight people is different, special, and relatively unusual when compared to the more commonly discussed and researched prejudices of race and gender. There are simply a wide range of phenomena and practices associated with many prejudices that are not applicable to anti-fat prejudice, and there are aspects of anti-fat prejudice that often do not appear when considering racism and sexism. In this chapter, we consider some of the ways in which anti-fat prejudice is both similar to and different from the prejudices of race and gender.