Neuroscience
When your waistband feels tighter than usual, or the scales say you've put on a few pounds, it's easy to blame the news on clothes shrinkage or an uneven carpet, especially if your body looks just the same in the mirror. And that lack of visual evidence for weight gain (or loss) is especially a problem for more obese people, according to a new paper in the British Journal of Health Psychology.
The researchers asked female participants to estimate the weight of 120 differently sized women (their weights ranged from 28.2 to 104.9 kg; roughly 4.5 to 16.5 stones). The heavier the women in the photos were, the more the participants tended to underestimate their weight – on average, "an observer who judges the weight of a 100 kg woman will underestimate her weight by ~10 kg" the researchers said.
In a second study, participants had to judge whether pairs of real or CGI women had the same or a different BMI (body mass index). When the women in the pictures had a higher BMI, the difference in their respective BMIs had to be greater for participants to notice a difference (this is actually an example of a basic perceptual phenomenon known as Weber's law).
"Our results clearly point to the potential for perceptual factors contributing to problems with detecting obesity and weight increase," concluded the researchers led by Katri Cornelissen at Northumbria University. As people get heavier they will find it more difficult to detect extra weight gain, and conversely they will also struggle to detect when they have lost weight, which may undermine dieting efforts.
--Visual biases in judging body weight
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Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
The bigger you get, the harder it is to tell whether you've gained or lost weight
The researchers asked female participants to estimate the weight of 120 differently sized women (their weights ranged from 28.2 to 104.9 kg; roughly 4.5 to 16.5 stones). The heavier the women in the photos were, the more the participants tended to underestimate their weight – on average, "an observer who judges the weight of a 100 kg woman will underestimate her weight by ~10 kg" the researchers said.
In a second study, participants had to judge whether pairs of real or CGI women had the same or a different BMI (body mass index). When the women in the pictures had a higher BMI, the difference in their respective BMIs had to be greater for participants to notice a difference (this is actually an example of a basic perceptual phenomenon known as Weber's law).
"Our results clearly point to the potential for perceptual factors contributing to problems with detecting obesity and weight increase," concluded the researchers led by Katri Cornelissen at Northumbria University. As people get heavier they will find it more difficult to detect extra weight gain, and conversely they will also struggle to detect when they have lost weight, which may undermine dieting efforts.
--Visual biases in judging body weight
_________________________________
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Our free fortnightly email will keep you up-to-date with all the psychology research we digest: Sign up!
- Why You Really Should Avoid Upsetting The Big, Drunk Guy
There are some obvious practical reasons why you might want to avoid provoking the big, drunk guy in the bar. After all, he's bigger than you. However, according to a new study, there's another more psychological reason to be wary - heavier men...
- "just Looking At A Cake Makes Me Feel Fatter"
Have you ever caught yourself staring at sumptuously-formed cake, only to come away with the guilty feeling that the mere act of looking has led you to put on weight? If so, you're not alone. Following research showing that people with eating disorders...
- Is Eating More Slowly The Key To Eating Less?
Barely a day goes by that we aren't reminded of the pending obesity crisis that is set to befall the Western World. Some experts have suggested that learning to eat more slowly might help us to eat less. Doing so leads to the subjective feeling that...
- Five-year-old Girls Who Want To Be Thin
Contributed by Hannah Corlass at Totton College Is it worrying that young girls don’t like their bodies, and know what a diet is? This study aimed to find out how aware of dieting and body dissatisfaction young girls (5-8 years old) are, and how peers...
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