Most People With Excess Weight Do Not Aim to Slim, Study Shows

According to Reuters news, most people with excess weight want to get rid of extra pounds, but are not willing to take practical steps in order to lose weight. As a proportion of the population suffering from weight problems and obesity grows very fast, larger body sizes become more acceptable in the society, which can partially explain why overweight people often do not aim to lose weight.

A new study looking at motivational issues involved in weight loss surveyed the current and ideal body weight of 310 college students and determined their corresponding body mass indexes. The study was conducted by researchers from the Carnell University of New York and published in the journal Eating Behaviours.

The researchers revealed that about 90 percent of young women of normal weight desired to become slimmer. Most of them wanted a body weight that was still within the normal range. Surprisingly, about half of underweight women also wanted to either become slimmer or remain in their current weight. As for overweight women and men, they wanted to lose some pounds, too, however, the ideal weight of about 50 percent of women and 56 percent of men remained within the unhealthy overweight range.

Assessing the results of the survey, researcher Lori Cornell says that that the society is becoming more accepting of normal-weight and larger-sized people, especially women, while before the social norms dictated women to be unnaturally slim. Interestingly, many people with excess weight do not even realize they are overweight, thus idealizing their current weight as normal and ignoring objective body mass index standards. Such position does not encourage overweight people to lose weight.

In addition to weight, the study also looked at the current and desired body shapes of the respondents. On average, ideal body shape of most underweight women was close to their current shape. However, many overweight individuals, especially women, remained unsatisfied with their current body shape, which could be an additional stimulus for them to aim for weight loss and a healthier lifestyle.

Kim Suffolk