If obesity is a disease, is labeling it that way the cure?
My final guest post at the BPS Research Digest went up on Friday, covering recent work by psychologists Crystal Hoyt, Jeni Burnette, and Lisa Auster-Gussman on the motivational implications of formally classifying obesity as a “disease,” as the American Medical Association did in July 2013.
My final guest post at the BPS Research Digest went up on Friday, covering recent work by psychologists Crystal Hoyt, Jeni Burnette, and Lisa Auster-Gussman on the motivational implications of formally classifying obesity as a "disease," as the American Medical Association did in July 2013.
The good news is that the AMA is right to celebrate the benefits that it has already touted; labeling obesity as a disease, in the experimental group, did lead obese participants to report higher levels of self-esteem and body satisfaction. The bad news, however, is that this decision might have serious consequences for the public health goal of actually reducing the obesity rate. In both studies, obese participants opted for sandwiches with significantly more calories when they received the “obesity-is-a-disease” message than when they received either the standard information-based message or the “obesity-isn’t-a-disease” message.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Melanie Tannenbaum is a freelance writer and science communications consultant currently living in the Bay Area. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, where her research focused on the science of persuasion and motivation regarding political, environmental, and health-related behavior. For more info, see her personal website.Follow Melanie Tannenbaum on Twitter
