Fear of fat people is medically known as cacomorphobia, we can define it as the fear of fat or obese people is derived from the Greek caco which means ugly, morpho which means form and phobos, which means fear or aversion. Thus, cacomorphobia represents the irrational fear of fat people. To some extent, fear of fat people could be related to body image issues that are often media or culture-induced. Nobody likes or wants a fat body; fat people are rarely shown in movies or on television unless it is to make a joke about their weight.
Weasels are terrified of fat or obese people; they cannot control the terror they experience around such individuals. They often realize that they are judging (often in downright cruel ways), yet they cannot prevent the panic attacks they experience by thinking about or seeing fat people. The phobia can also realize that weight has nothing to do with a person’s nature.
Homophobia is a relatively rare phobia, the intensity of which varies from individual to individual.
You might also like to read: Fear Of Butterflies: Causes, Symptoms, Overcoming.
Index
Causes of cacomorphobia
- As in the case of other specific phobias, comorbidity also stems from negative or traumatic episodes related to obese/fat people at a young age.
- Most fat people are unable to walk fast or do activities quickly.
- An obese person could have bullied a child without knowing it.
- Many fat people generally suffer from body image problems due to overeating or getting drunk.
- Most feel lonely and have a depressed mentality that makes them rude to others.
A phobia, as a child, one may have experienced violence or rudeness from a fat person, and this instills a lifelong fear in overweight people.
- Fat or obese children at school may have bullied the Cacomorphobic, which induced the phobia.
- Size or size discrimination is often confused with fear of fatphobia.
- However, size discrimination only leads to discrimination against a fat person.
- Many doctors, for example, are known to be “disgusted” by fat people and often refuse to accept them as patients.
- Homophobia, on the other hand, is the extreme and constant fear of being overweight or very large and is typically seen in anxious and nervous individuals.
- Usually, the thoughts show that everyone is fat; I feed the phobia.
- As already mentioned, the media also play a vital role in the ideal appearance of people.
- Models, celebrities, and athletes are often shown to have “perfect bodies,” which can lead to a “disgust” response at the sight of a fat person.
- Many phobics, for example, report feeling nauseous when they see fat people eating or overeating high-calorie foods in restaurants.
Symptoms
People who have this phobia may present the following symptoms:
- Fast heartbeat, fast, deep breathing
- Experiencing chills, chills, and tremors
- Experiencing a total panic attack, wanting to run away or hide
- Avoidance Behavior: Do your best to avoid fat people.
- Irritability, depression, and agoraphobia are also seen in these phobics.
Among the psychological symptoms are the thoughts that can become obsessive and even attract negative thoughts such as death that cannot be controlled by patients without medical help.
Emotional symptoms of extreme fear of the fat people phobia include anticipation anxiety in which the person might obsessively worry about meeting fat people.
- As a result, try to avoid shopping malls, public places, restaurants, etc., where there is a greater chance of seeing them.
Overcome the fear of fat people
- Medical/drug intervention is often the only way to overcome this phobia, significantly when fear interferes with daily life.
- Sedatives, antidepressants, and anxiolytics often help overcome the symptoms of fear or phobia in fat people.
- However, most psychiatrists avoid prescribing them due to their adverse side effects like extreme drowsiness, etc.
- Also, the medications do not get to the bottom of the homophobia but only provide symptomatic relief.
- Hypnoanalysis or hypnotherapy is a proven therapy known to help the mind adjust to the different feelings and responses that the phobia has towards fat people.
- Behavior and desensitization therapies are two other effective techniques that can help overcome homophobia.
- They include changing the response to fat people through gradual exposure in the form of situations, pictures, drawings, etc.
Hello, how are you? My name is Georgia Tarrant, and I am a clinical psychologist. In everyday life, professional obligations seem to predominate over our personal life. It's as if work takes up more and more of the time we'd love to devote to our love life, our family, or even a moment of leisure.