THE OBESITY PREJUDICE

Children dislike fat people, apparently.

Studies have shown that children as young as 4 reflect our cultures negative attitudes towards obesity by rejecting those who are overweight. 

In experiments with more than 100 UK primary school pupils aged four to seven, investigators from Leeds University found that children voiced negative views about a fictional book character called 'fat Alfie'.  The children rejected ‘Fat Alfie’ as someone less likely to get invited to parties, and crucially someone they would not choose to be friends with. Overall however, they voiced positive attitudes towards a ‘wheel-chair-using Alfie’.

Cultures condition our prejudices at a shockingly young age. Children reflect a culture’s attitudes towards body image before they’ve even learnt to tie their shoelaces.

What should we learn from this experiment?

Protests against advertisers who use borderline anorexic models to sell their products tend to focus on teenage girls as those most vulnerable to mental harm. But is this too late? Are we crucially overlooking the group most susceptible to harm by advertising?

Social and cultural norms, often dictated by mass media bombardment, clearly become ingrained at a far earlier age than we often assume. Campaigns to protect children from advertising tend to target that of an explicit or sexual nature. The famous campaign, receiving channel 4 coverage, ‘Stop Pimping our Kids’ focuses on how our mass media causes a premature over-sexualisation of children. This approach is too narrow. Children in fact often do not understand the sexual connotations in the media, but what they crucially do understand is body image. Our culture’s obsession with unattainable thinness becomes imprinted in children at an age far younger than is generally assumed, thus paving the path for unhealthy eating habits to be formed later on.

Media has a strong influence on the very young in society. In light of this we must implement advertising regulations to protect our children.