Plus-sized models may influence obesity rate: SFU study

Erica Schenk, who has been a runner for 10 years, is seen on the cover of the August 2015 edition of Women's Running. (Women's Running/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

As the fashion industry begins to include models of all shapes and sizes, a Canadian university study suggests that the rise of plus-sized models may be contributing to increased rates of obesity.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business say they’ve found a relationship between fewer images of “underweight and aesthetically flawless” models in ad campaigns and a rise in poor “eating behaviour” and lifestyle choices among the public.

In five experiments, researchers showed test subject cues that suggested that obesity “was acceptable” and gauged the subjects’ reactions.

In each case, the subjects were more likely to eat unhealthy foods, experience reduced motivation to live a healthy lifestyle and have “an increased belief that obesity was more socially acceptable,” researchers wrote in a press release.

The authors also suggest that consumers who see images of plus-sized models have heightened “body anxiety,” which is “ironically the opposite of what many of these marketing campaigns are trying to achieve,” they wrote.

But study co-author Brent McFerran insists the study doesn’t advocate for size double-zero models and that “fat-shaming -- or stigmatizing such bodies -- fails to improve motivation to lose weight.”

Instead, he says ad campaigns should profile healthy body types and avoid labelling certain shapes as “good” or “bad.”

“Since neither accepting nor stigmatizing larger bodies achieves the desired results, it would be beneficial for marketers and policy makers to instead find a middle ground -- using images of people with a healthy weight, and more importantly, refraining from drawing attention to the body size issue entirely,” McFerran said in a statement.