Perceptions: Everybody Except My Slender Friends and Me
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Nine out of 10 Americans think most of their fellow citizens are overweight, a new survey shows. But only 70 percent believe that most of the people they know are. And when it comes to themselves, only about 4 of 10 think they weigh too much.
The numbers may not seem to add up, but that is what a study from the Pew Research Center found in surveying more than 2,250 adults about the worsening obesity problem.
"People tend to see the weight problem of the nation as a whole as being greater than the weight problems of their friends and acquaintances," said the report, online at pewresearch.org.
The survey respondents are certainly right when it comes to the big picture. Federal studies, the report noted, estimate that about 31 percent of American adults are obese, and that an additional third are overweight.
"But when they think about weight," the researchers wrote of the people surveyed, "they appear to use different scales for different people."
Most blamed a lack of exercise for the obesity problem, but many also pointed to a lack of self-control. About a fourth said they were dieting, and about half said they had dieted at some point in their lives.
The survey also found that women tended to say they were lighter and taller: 150 pounds and 5-foot-5 were the median figures.
A recent government study, the researchers said, found that the median actual weight and height for women were 155 pounds and 5-foot-4. Men tended to add two inches to their height but also said they were heavier.
Some people just did not want to talk about it. Nine percent of the women surveyed and 3 percent of the men declined to say how much they weighed or said they did not know.
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