Fat or obese – What’s in a name?

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDDec 13 2010

The question of whether the term ‘fat’ is more appropriate than ‘obese’ was raised in an Australian study that confirmed the former is the “lesser of two evils”. The study from University of NSW study which looked at public perceptions surrounding these words has found that, while both are unwelcome, obese was viewed more negatively.

Study’s author, Lenny Vartanian, a lecturer at UNSW’s School of Psychology said, “I wouldn’t say that there was any acceptance of ‘fat’, but that ‘obesity’ was seen as less favourable and more disgusting…People saw themselves as being more like a fat person than an obese person, there was more a sense of familiarity with fat people than obese people.”

For the study the team took in the opinions of almost 430 undergraduate students, of a variety of body sizes, at the university. He added that this has been shown in earlier studies. “They don’t like being called fat, but it does seem to be the lesser of two evils… They would prefer to be called fat than to be called obese…(So) the term ‘fat’ in these studies does seem to be less problematic than the term ‘obese’,” he added.

This July the UK health minister and the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, both had said calling some obese people fat might be the impetus they needed to start losing weight. Dr Vartanian said that this idea was wrong since “shaming” was known to not motivate people to make positive changes to their lifestyle. “Research tells us that shaming overweight and obese people into changing their diet and exercise behaviour does not work — it actually backfires, causing them to be less likely to diet and exercise,” he said. Also calling overweight people fat would make many feel “less bad about themselves”. “Calling someone a fat person is like calling somebody crazy - it just doesn’t have an official definition that is useful… It doesn’t have a place in (public health) forums, and while obese might be seen more negatively and as less desirable to obese individuals themselves, at least it has an official definition.”

He feels as of now “obese” should be what it implies clinically i.e. having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and above. He said, “If you have a BMI over a certain point then you are categorized as obese from a medical perspective, because you are at increased risk of type two diabetes and heart disease.”

Dr Vartanian has also shown in his study that the community is fast accepting obesity as normal. He said, “As the population gets heavier it would certainly skew people’s perceptions… There are many people who we see walking down the street with a BMI over 30 and we might not necessarily recognize them as obese.”

The study is published in the Italian-based journal Eating and Weight Disorder.