The Confounding of Fat, Control, and Physical Attractiveness for Women

Fikkan and Rothblum (2011) provided a comprehensive review of the experience of weight bias in women. However, they do not significantly address why fat might be so negatively stigmatized in women. In this paper, I propose that fat women experience both the stigma of unattractiveness and the stigma that they lack control. Because women are expected to be physically attractive, fat women are more impacted by these stigmas than are fat men. Given that much of the research on fat stigma and physical attractiveness is done in Western countries, and fat is not stigmatized in the same way in all cultures, this paper is primarily focused on the United States, although some cross cultural research is discussed. Considering the source of fat women’s stigma provides a necessary foundation for a comprehensive review of the effects of that stigma.