The effect of a medical opinion on self-perceptions of weight for Mexican adults: perception of change and cognitive biases

ConclusionsObese and overweight Mexican adults not only underestimated their weight, but also, could not accurately judge changes in weight. For example, an increase of 5  kg is imagined, in terms of self-image, to be considerably less. It was seen that an identification of obesity by a health care professional did not improve ability to judge weight but, rather, served as a new anchor from which the identified obese judge their weight, suggesting that even those id entified obese who have lost weight, perceive their weight to be greater than it actually is. We believe that these results can be explained in terms of two cognitive biases; the self-serving bias and the anchoring bias.
Source: BMC Obesity - Category: Eating Disorders and Weight Management Source Type: research