Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception

Abstract Combatting the current global epidemic of obesity requires that people have a realistic understanding of what a healthy body size looks like. This is a particular issue in different population sub-groups, where there may be increased susceptibility to obesity-related diseases. Prior researc...

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Autores principales:	Annie W. Y. Chan, Danielle L. Noles, Nathan Utkov, Oguz Akbilgic, Webb Smith
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/acae631d0c354156b7c8594249609710
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:acae631d0c354156b7c85942496097102021-12-02T14:59:15ZMisalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception10.1038/s41598-021-89533-52045-2322https://doaj.org/article/acae631d0c354156b7c85942496097102021-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89533-5https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Combatting the current global epidemic of obesity requires that people have a realistic understanding of what a healthy body size looks like. This is a particular issue in different population sub-groups, where there may be increased susceptibility to obesity-related diseases. Prior research has been unable to systematically assess body size judgement due to a lack of attention to gender and race; our study aimed to identify the contribution of these factors. Using a data-driven multi-variate decision tree approach, we varied the gender and race of image stimuli used, and included the same diversity among participants. We adopted a condition-rich categorization visual task and presented participants with 120 unique body images. We show that gender and weight categories of the stimuli affect accuracy of body size perception. The decision pattern reveals biases for male bodies, in which participants showed an increasing number of errors from leaner to bigger bodies, particularly under-estimation errors. Participants consistently mis-categorized overweight male bodies as normal weight, while accurately categorizing normal weight. Overweight male bodies are now perceived as part of an expanded normal: the perceptual boundary of normal weight has become wider than the recognized BMI category. For female bodies, another intriguing pattern emerged, in which participants consistently mis-categorized underweight bodies as normal, whilst still accurately categorizing normal female bodies. Underweight female bodies are now in an expanded normal, in opposite direction to that of males. Furthermore, an impact of race type and gender of participants was also observed. Our results demonstrate that perceptual weight categorization is multi-dimensional, such that categorization decisions can be driven by ultiple factors.Annie W. Y. ChanDanielle L. NolesNathan UtkovOguz AkbilgicWebb SmithNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Annie W. Y. Chan Danielle L. Noles Nathan Utkov Oguz Akbilgic Webb Smith Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
description	Abstract Combatting the current global epidemic of obesity requires that people have a realistic understanding of what a healthy body size looks like. This is a particular issue in different population sub-groups, where there may be increased susceptibility to obesity-related diseases. Prior research has been unable to systematically assess body size judgement due to a lack of attention to gender and race; our study aimed to identify the contribution of these factors. Using a data-driven multi-variate decision tree approach, we varied the gender and race of image stimuli used, and included the same diversity among participants. We adopted a condition-rich categorization visual task and presented participants with 120 unique body images. We show that gender and weight categories of the stimuli affect accuracy of body size perception. The decision pattern reveals biases for male bodies, in which participants showed an increasing number of errors from leaner to bigger bodies, particularly under-estimation errors. Participants consistently mis-categorized overweight male bodies as normal weight, while accurately categorizing normal weight. Overweight male bodies are now perceived as part of an expanded normal: the perceptual boundary of normal weight has become wider than the recognized BMI category. For female bodies, another intriguing pattern emerged, in which participants consistently mis-categorized underweight bodies as normal, whilst still accurately categorizing normal female bodies. Underweight female bodies are now in an expanded normal, in opposite direction to that of males. Furthermore, an impact of race type and gender of participants was also observed. Our results demonstrate that perceptual weight categorization is multi-dimensional, such that categorization decisions can be driven by ultiple factors.
format	article
author	Annie W. Y. Chan Danielle L. Noles Nathan Utkov Oguz Akbilgic Webb Smith
author_facet	Annie W. Y. Chan Danielle L. Noles Nathan Utkov Oguz Akbilgic Webb Smith
author_sort	Annie W. Y. Chan
title	Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
title_short	Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
title_full	Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
title_fullStr	Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
title_full_unstemmed	Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
title_sort	misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/acae631d0c354156b7c8594249609710
work_keys_str_mv	AT anniewychan misalignmentbetweenperceptualboundariesandweightcategoriesreflectsanewnormalforbodysizeperception AT daniellelnoles misalignmentbetweenperceptualboundariesandweightcategoriesreflectsanewnormalforbodysizeperception AT nathanutkov misalignmentbetweenperceptualboundariesandweightcategoriesreflectsanewnormalforbodysizeperception AT oguzakbilgic misalignmentbetweenperceptualboundariesandweightcategoriesreflectsanewnormalforbodysizeperception AT webbsmith misalignmentbetweenperceptualboundariesandweightcategoriesreflectsanewnormalforbodysizeperception
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Misalignment between perceptual boundaries and weight categories reflects a new normal for body size perception

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