Gender, social status and weight
The researchers theorise that while the slenderness ideal becomes increasingly rigid for women as their social contacts’ socioeconomic status increases, men may experience more social pressure to prove they are masculine breadwinners than concern about excess weight and weight control. PHOTO| FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University in the United States shows new nuances in the links between a person’s weight and the socioeconomic status of the people close to them and suggests that gender plays a significant role in that relationship, the institution said in a press release on Monday.
Using data from America’s 2004 General Social Survey, Lijun Song, a professor of sociology, and graduate students Philip Pettis and Bhumika Piya analysed the relationship between an individual’s weight as measured by a visual evaluation, the socioeconomic status of the people they are close to as measured by their educational attainment, lifestyle as measured by self-reported athleticism, and gender.
While they found no direct link between an individual’s weight and the socioeconomic status of their personal network, they did find an indirect one through lifestyle.
The data shows that people with a more educated personal network are more likely to describe themselves as athletic, which can lead to lower body weights.
However, Song and her collaborators found this is only true for women. If they are surrounded by people of high socioeconomic status, they are going to face and conform to the body weight norm of slender femininity even more. For men, however, the reverse is true: having higher-status contacts is associated with higher weights.
The researchers theorise that while the slenderness ideal becomes increasingly rigid for women as their social contacts’ socioeconomic status increases, men may experience more social pressure to prove they are masculine breadwinners than concern about excess weight and weight control. So they may feel less inclined to practice a weight-conscious lifestyle, such as dieting or exercising, than women.
“The implication here is that body weight norms are gendered, and one’s network reinforces it,” Song says.
The paper is titled “Does Your Body Know Who You Know? Multiple Roles of Network Members’ Socioeconomic Status for Body Weight Ratings”. It is online in the Sociological Perspectives journal.
