No that title is not a misprint. As if being heavy and trying to lose weight wasn’t hard enough, a new study has come out that basically says no one will love you if you’re fat, but they might if you’re fat, smart and have money. Insert blank stare here. According to and article in Jezebel on a study led by Columbia University sociologist Pierre-Andre Chiappori, men and women rate a mate’s marriage potential based on physical and socioeconomic factors. Both men and women want their mates to be slim and their attraction decreases as their mate’s weight increases. However, in order for the heavy spouse to keep the fires of love blazing, they need to compensate for their weighty issues by either going back to school or earning more money.

No one will say that it is healthy to be overweight or obese, and of course there are people out there more attracted to someone with a slender figure or at least one no bigger than their own. However to say that overweight people should compensate for what they “lack” in “attractiveness” by proving their smarts and earning enough money to essentially buy their partner’s affections is completely ridiculous. Does no one watch Dr. Phil?? You can’t get someone to change a bad habit by degrading them or making them feel less than, which is exactly what reports like this do. Instead of saying hey, you’ll be healthier if you made a lifestyle change, but either way look for love with someone that accepts you as you are, people and researchers are going out of their way to find more reasons and ways to basically shame our overweight culture into weight loss submission.

The time spent researching how overweight people can get some love, could’ve been spent researching ways to combat the issue. The time could’ve been used to research how to get healthier and affordable food options into low income urban neighborhoods or the need for increased physical activity programs in schools. Obesity in our country is an epidemic, but telling people they are unlovable will do nothing more than add to the problem. The last thing people need is something else depressing to eat about. Yes, people need to know the cold hard facts about obesity and its effects, but we need solutions and long lasting lifestyle changes more, and that’s something we won’t find between the degrading pages of yet another report like Chiappori’s.

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