Categorization and Stereotyping Toward Obese Women's Appearance

The purpose of this study were to examine how people categorize obese individuals and if they have stereotyping about obese individuals. Twenty-five female volunteer subjects participated in this study. Subjects were undergraduate students in Textiles and Clothing courses at a midwestern university, US. Subjects were asked to give their one-word responses to four statements or questions regarding their impressions of six stimuli. The six stimuli consisted of magazine photographs of women; the magazines were general interest and fashion publications. Subjects then recorded their answers in the boxes for each of the six pictures. As the results, the relevant question as to whether or not more negative attributes would be assigned to the obese model's photographs was confirmed for the Description of Model variable, but not for the Personality of Model or for the Liking the Model variables. There was significant difference in means between the positive and negative descriptions of the Description of Model variable in the direction of negativity toward the obese group seems to confirm that, not only do people categorize others based on appearance, but there was a tendency to favor the average-size group and to view as negative the obese group.