{"id":3366,"date":"2010-04-16T06:15:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T04:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=3366"},"modified":"2015-02-15T09:26:22","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T14:26:22","slug":"study-women-fear-fat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/study-women-fear-fat\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Women Have a Fear of Fat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interesting study discussed in the Telegraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Brain scans of women who were shown pictures of overweight strangers triggers activity in a part of the brain that processes identity and self-reflection.<\/p>\n

The results show how women are conditioned to be afraid of being fat because they are constantly bombarded with messages and images of thin being the ideal.<\/p>\n

But the same tests done on men revealed they showed no interest in their own weight indicating why women are much closer to developing eating disorders.<\/p>\n

Researchers from America’s Brigham Young University found that women felt scared of being overweight without consciously thinking about their figure.<\/p>\n

Neuroscientist Mark Allen said: “These women in our study had no history of eating disorders and project an attitude that they don’t care about body image.<\/p>\n

“Yet under the surface is an anxiety about getting fat and the centrality of body image to self.”<\/p>\n

…Dr Allen said women are bombarded with messages that perpetuate the thin ideal, and the barrage changes how they view themselves.<\/p>\n

“Many women learn that bodily appearance and thinness constitute what is important about them, and their brain responding reflects that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think it is an unfortunate and false idea to learn about oneself and does put one at greater risk for eating and mood disorders.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This doesn’t surprise me one bit.\u00a0 I had the exact same\u00a0anxiety planted in my own head. Yet\u00a0I never really knew it was there until I tackled my first gaining cycle. I was completely on board with it, intellectually – yet every\u00a0time another pound registered on the scale, my brain would immediately start screaming… it BOTHERED me to gain weight, even though the image looking back at me from the mirror looked fine.\u00a0 Nothing was jiggling, my clothes still fit, and I was gaining strength – just what the doctor<\/span> trainer ordered.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it bothered me that it bothered me. I knew it was fundamentally irrational,\u00a0which made me that much more determined to work through it. The good news is that I did, and ended up being delighted with my new, heavier – stronger and more muscular – self. The next time I did a cycle, I was able to take the whole thing in stride.<\/p>\n

What can I say? Our image-and-fashion-obsessed society<\/a> is truly toxic for women. You can appreciate just how bad it is when even women with (so-called) “healthy” body images are affected by it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting study discussed in the Telegraph: Brain scans of women who were shown pictures of overweight strangers triggers activity in a part of the brain that processes identity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,28],"tags":[241,562],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9078,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3366\/revisions\/9078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}