Another Victim Group

From Reuters:

(Reuters Health) – - People can be so turned off by obese individuals that they actually imagine a bad smell, according to a new study. 

Study participants who were shown images of heavy and thin individuals while sniffing odorless substances rated the “scent samples” as smelling worse when they were paired with images of heavy people.

“Our findings suggest that people may hold negative views of heavy individuals that are sufficiently entrenched that they can cross over into olfactory (that is, smell) perceptions though people may not be aware that they hold such views,” senior author Andrew Ward told Reuters Health in an email....

“They experience stigma and discrimination in just about every aspect of daily life - including healthcare, education, legal proceedings, personal relationships - even going shopping is fraught with potential and actual negative experiences,” Meadows told Reuters Health in an email.

“The world is not a friendly place for fat individuals,” said Meadows.

Meadows said most scientific attempts at improving the situation haven't been very successful.

“Public health messages and the 'War on Obesity' aren't helping because they frame the fat individual as the villain, and media representations of fat people are almost entirely negative," she said.

When this stigma is pointed out, Meadows added, people often respond by saying that if fat people don't like being treated badly, they should lose weight. 

“Fat is one of the few stigmatized groups who are expected to change themselves in response to being bullied and harassed,” she pointed out.

 Does anyone recognize this.