Patients wearing fat suits reveal medical students' prejudices, study finds

Research showed medical students had more anti-fat sentiments, agreeing with statements like "most fat people are lazy".

Tuesday 6 August 2019 12:44, UK

Scientists think getting patients to wear fat suits could reveal prejudices of doctors. Pic: British Medical Journal
Image: Experts say patients to wear fat suits could reveal doctors' prejudices. Pic: British Medical Journal
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Researchers have said that getting hospital patients to wear fat suits could reveal the prejudices of medical students against overweight and obese people.

A study in the British Medical Journal shows that during research in Germany, medical students seemed to harbour more negative attitudes towards obesity than either teachers or parents.

Scientists at the University of Tuebingen asked trainee doctors to take an "anti-fat attitudes test" in which they took part in a role play which featured "patients" wearing fat suits, to authentically simulate a patient with type 2 diabetes.

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Image: Researchers said students displayed anti-fat sentiments

The volunteers also wore extra weights inside the suit to give them a more authentic experience.

A total of 207 students took part in the experiment, in which volunteers played out a meeting between a family doctor and a patient with diabetes.

Afterwards, participants were asked how much they agree with statements on a scale of one to five, which included "fat people have no will power" and "fat people are lazy".

The study showed that students were more likely to agree more strongly with the statements, "fat people could lose weight if they really wanted to", "most fat people are lazy", and "there is no excuse for being fat".

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The research team said: "We strongly believe that integrating an obesity simulation suit into the routine undergraduate medical teaching context is a valuable tool.

"It can raise medical students' awareness for communication encounters with patients with obesity."

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The objective of the research was for medical students to be "prepared to engage in weight management and obesity-related communications to prevent patients from having stigmatising experiences".

Researchers also wanted to ensure that "medical students should have training to reduce anti-fat prejudices".

The study also highlighted the need for "specialised teaching" around the issue, to try and crack down on prejudices against overweight people in medicine.

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