“Better If They Laugh with Me than at Me”: The Role of Humor in Coping with Obesity-Related Stigma in Women

Abstract

This study investigated the role of perceived stigmatization in the relationship between humor styles and coping with stress among young women suffering from stigma due to obesity. In the 21st century, obesity is an increasing global health issue with many physical and mental consequences for obese women. As a chronic stigmatizing disease, it requires that the affected individuals cope with social consequences; women with obesity are more prone to such consequences than men. Humor fosters the breaking of stereotypes and alleviating the consequences of stigmatization. A total of 127 young adult women (age M = 25.74, SD = 2.73) participated in the study (n = 54 with overfat and n = 73 with healthy fat). Participants filled out the Humor Styles Questionnaire, Perceived Stigmatization Questionnaire, and the Brief COPE Scale. Anthropometric data were gathered using a body composition analyzer. Results indicate that, when perceiving hostile behaviors toward themselves and using humor as a coping strategy, women with overfat select maladaptive styles of humor (i.e., self-defeating and aggressive styles). Women with overfat were also more likely to use humor as a coping strategy in difficult situations. Furthermore, none of the participants were satisfied with their body mass. At the same time, among women without obesity, a lack of compliments was not treated as a problem, even if they had high body fat.

Attitudes Towards Appearance and Body-Related Stigma Among Young Women With Obesity and Psoriasis

“…Interestingly, women who were not overweight and did not suffer from any skin condition, even those with high body fat levels, did not perceive a lack of positive behaviours towards them or lack of compliments. This is in line with previous research ( 79 ) that found that women who were not overweight did not associate increased body mass or body fat with lack of friendly behaviours towards them. Contrasting results were observed by Lipowska et al ( 33 ), where lack of perceived friendly behaviours was deemed an important component of stigma and compliments played an important role in building the body esteem of the young female participants, independently of their body mass.…”

“…Despite the fact that multiple studies indicate that women are more preoccupied with their weight than are men ( 84 ) and women with higher body mass are more dissatisfied with their appearance ( 85 – 87 ), dissatisfaction with one's appearance and body mass appears to be a universal phenomenon for women ( 88 ). Similar results were observed in a study in which all female participants, independently of their body mass and body fat levels, expressed dissatisfaction with their body mass and a desire to reduce it ( 79 ). Interestingly, in the study Blodorn et al ( 89 ), women with higher weight, when they were to describe during the study why they would make a good date, and their potential partner would see or hear their recording, felt greater expectations of social rejection when weight was seen (vs. unseen).…”

The Relationship between Obligatory Exercise and Eating Attitudes, and the Mediating Role of Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Many people at such a young age are still in the early stages of their career or have just stabilized at work, must cope with the pressures of marriage, a mortgage, or raising young children, or a combination thereof. Pressure is thought to affect eating behavior [60]: people tend to change their original eating habits to cope with stress [61][62][63][64]. Therefore, higher life stress may be the reason for the abnormal eating attitudes of these groups.…”

Does obesity rule out happiness? Preschool children’s perceptions of beauty-related happiness

“…There were also no significant differences with regard to the assessments of women with different body types. It is worth noting that perceiving obese people as funny [ 30 ], making up for their weight with jokes and playfulness, is also a stereotypical perception of obese people [ 54 ]. There is clear evidence from the social science literature that fat stigmatization exists in all realms of life [ 29 , 30 , 55 , 56 ] and that it mostly concerns women.…”

“…One of the negative manifestations of such a relationship is body stigmatization [ 29 , 30 ], which is already present in childhood [ 31 , 32 ]. Children already prefer slim bodies and average-sized individuals by the time they reach preschool age [ 33 , 34 ], and they already manifest a disinclination towards obese individuals by the age of three [ 35 ].…”