There's a lot finger-pointing going on these days.

Scientists, doctors, and researchers gather together at conferences and discuss what and who is to blame for obesity. All sorts of bizarre and intriguing opinions are thrown into the mix (such as fat people causing an increase in gasoline consumption).

Are we fueling the fires of stigma?

Earlier this year the journal of Obesity Research contained an enlightening and eye opening study into something called an "Anti-Fat Bias".

Essentially, everyone in the study (regardless of their own body weight) exhibited an anti-fat bias.

Thinner people were more likely to automatically associate negative attributes (bad, lazy) with fat people, to prefer thin people to fat people, and to explicitly rate fat people as lazier and less motivated than thin people.

Many respondents would rather endure adverse life events than be obese:

• Be willing to give up at least 1 year of life rather than be obese (46% of respondents)
• Willing to give up 10 years or more of their life (15%)
• Would rather be divorced than obese (30%)
• Rather be unable to have children than be obese (25%)
• Rather be severely depressed (15%)
• Rather be alcoholic (14%)

Read the entire original article here.