You're Fat! One UCLA Study Proves that Verbal Cues in Adolescence Lead to Obesity in Adult Women

Looking into the power of words and the psychological effects of disparaging comments, a joint research team at the Universities of California, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles recently found that being called "fat" in adolescence can likely manifest in obesity nearly a decade later.

The study, published in the JAMA Journal of Pediatrics this last June 2014, observed a cross-cultural slice of 2,379 girls from Northern California, Cincinnati and Washington DC, 58% of which had already faced  the stigma of being told they were "fat" at the age of 10 when the study began. Following the girls for nine years, and finishing the study when the girls reached the age of 19, researchers found a direct correlation between the words and the girls' weight.

"Simply being labeled as 'too fat' [now] has a measurable effect almost a decade later" A. Janet Tomiyama, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA, says. "Even after we statistically removed the effects of their actual weight, their income, their race and when they reached puberty, the effects remained."

A now quantifiable physiological effect from augmenting psychology, the girls labeled as "fat" were found to be 166% more likely to be obese at the age of 19, following a normalized height and weight scale for average American women.

The study also quantified the strength of the effect, noting that as the frequency of being told that the individual was fat increased, so did the likelihood of the individual being increasingly obese at the age of 19.

"Being labeled as too fat may lead people to worry about personally experiencing the stigma and discrimination faced by overweight individuals" co-author from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Jeffrey Hunger says. "And recent research suggests that experience or anticipating weight stigma increases stress and can lead to overeating."

Connecting their other research, and growing knowledge in the psychology behind weight gain and loss, Tomiyama and her research associates added a little bit of advice and clarification for questions that have arisen because of their studies.

"Eating in moderation is a good idea for everybody, and so is regular exercise," former UCLA faculty member Traci Mann says.

"The genetic power over weight is about the same as the power of genes over your height," Tomiyama says. "People who say 'it's your fault if you're fat' underappreciate the role of genes."