Doctors are guilty of wrongly believing that obese people are simply lazy, research suggests.

Researchers at Yale University said the findings highlight the difficulty in tackling the stigma around obesity.

Many obese people complain that others believe they are overweight simply because they eat too much or fail to exercise.

This is despite the fact that obesity can be caused by a variety of other factors, such as genes and environment.

Dr Marlene Schwartz and colleagues carried out psychological tests on 389 professionals who treat and study obese people.

They found that younger professionals, in particular, were most likely to have unfavourable stereotypes of obese people.

Workers who did not deal directly with obese patients were also inclined to see them in an unfavourable light.

"On both implicit and explicit measures, health professionals associated the stereotypes lazy, stupid and worthless with obese people," said Dr Schwartz.

"The stigma of obesity is so strong that even those most knowledgeable about the condition infer that obese people have blameworthy behavioural characteristics that contribute to their problem, i.e. being lazy," she said.

"Furthermore, these biases extend to core characteristics of intelligence and personal worth."

Dr Ian Campbell of the UK's National Obesity Forum said he was not surprised by the findings and said they would probably be replicated if the test was carried out on British doctors.

"It is disappointing but it is not surprising to see that health professionals have the same ingrained prejudice against obese people as the general public," he said.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that as much as 80% of people who are obese are predisposed genetically."

"Although it is very rare to find a case where obesity is purely genetic, there are many cases where it is not in the patient's control."

He said it was unhelpful for doctors to be biased against obese patients.

"It is important for doctors and other health professionals to show understanding and enthusiasm for change."

"If a doctor is biased against the patient's efforts, then it is unlikely to have a good outcome."

研究表明：醫生們錯誤的認為肥胖完全是因為懶惰，他們這樣說是有罪的。

耶魯大學的研究者們說該結果突出了一個問題——要解除肥胖帶來的惡名不那么容易。

許多肥胖的人抱怨說別人都以為他們過度肥胖就是因為他們貪吃，或者是缺乏運動。

然而事實并非如此。造成肥胖的因素多種多樣，例如基因和環境。

馬琳·施瓦茨醫生和他的同事對389名治療和研究肥胖病人的醫護人員進行了心理測試。

他們發現特別是一些較年輕的醫護人員更容易對肥胖病人有偏見。

那些不直接和肥胖病人打交道的工作人員也傾向于對他們另眼相看。

“不管是用含蓄的還是直接的方式，醫護人員總是將懶惰、愚蠢、無用和肥胖的人聯系起來，”施瓦茨醫生說。

她說：“肥胖的名聲太壞，甚至那些健康知識非常淵博的人也推斷肥胖患者是因為養成了不當的行為習慣，例如懶惰，才導致肥胖。”

“而且，這些偏見擴大到智力和個人價值等核心特征。”

英國國家肥胖論壇的伊恩·坎貝爾醫生說他對這樣的發現并不感到驚訝，如果在英國醫生中進行這樣的測試，結果可能會雷同。

“醫護人員和大眾一樣對肥胖病人有根深蒂固的偏見，這一發現讓我們感到失望但并不出乎意料，”他說。

“現在越來越明顯，將近80%的肥胖病人是受基因的影響。”

“盡管很少發現肥胖完全是因為基因引起的，但是在許多病例中病人是無法控制發胖的。”

他說醫生對肥胖病人有偏見是沒有好處的。

“醫生和其它醫護人員應該理解和積極支持病人改變現狀，這一點很重要。”

“如果醫生對病人的努力有偏見，那么就不太可能有好結果。”