{"id":42383,"date":"2006-04-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2006\/04\/11\/americans-see-weight-problems-everywhere-but-in-the-mirror\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T08:55:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:55:34","slug":"americans-see-weight-problems-everywhere-but-in-the-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2006\/04\/11\/americans-see-weight-problems-everywhere-but-in-the-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans See Weight Problems Everywhere But In the Mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"People<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Americans believe their fellow Americans have gotten fat. They consider this a serious national problem. But when they think about weight, they appear to use different scales for different people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine-in-ten American adults say most of their fellow Americans are overweight. But just seven-in-ten say this about “the people they know.” And just under four-in-ten (39%) say they themselves are overweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sliding assessments are drawn from a Pew Research Center telephone survey conducted from February 8 through March 7 among a randomly selected, representative national sample of 2,250 adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey finds that most Americans, including those who say they are overweight, agree that personal behavior – rather than genetic disposition or marketing by food companies – is the main reason people are overweight. In particular, the public says that a failure to get enough exercise is the most important reason, followed by a lack of willpower about what to eat. About half the public also says that the kinds of foods marketed at restaurants and grocery stores are a very important cause, and roughly a third say the same about the effect of genetics and heredity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full report<\/a> for more details.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans believe their fellow Americans have gotten fat. They consider this a serious national problem. But when they think about weight, they appear to use different scales for different people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"We tend to weigh ourselves on a different scale","sub_title":"We tend to weigh ourselves on a different scale","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_api_pending":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_auto_publish":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[{"key":"07f29fd1-6b92-40f4-b6f0-c515f2ebccbd","type":"report","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/10\/Obesity.pdf","label":"","attachmentId":0,"icon":""}],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[724],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[371,267],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"datasets":[1107],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[2812,2811,2813],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[519],"workflow-status":[],"collection":[],"class_list":["post-42383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-medicine-health","datasets-dietgamblingmovies","primary_audience-engaged-public","primary_audience-media","primary_audience-stakeholders","formats-report","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":"Report","post_parent":0,"word_count":189,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2006\/04\/11\/americans-see-weight-problems-everywhere-but-in-the-mirror\/","charts":[],"art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"prc_checklist":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"complete","message":"All images have alt text.","data":null},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 5 paragraphs.","data":{"count":5}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 2 internal links.","data":{"count":2}},"prc-environment-link":{"status":"complete","message":"No links to other Pew Research environments.","data":{"count":0,"hosts":[]}}},"watchChildPosts":false,"watchers":[{"id":724,"name":"msolorzano","email":"msolorzano-temp@pewresearch.org","slack_user_id":"","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f86893a13d28433dcc6c4512a48b171b84ea93b30b59a30560a70570b12b1dec?s=48&d=mm&r=g"}],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":[{"key":"07f29fd1-6b92-40f4-b6f0-c515f2ebccbd","type":"report","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/10\/Obesity.pdf","label":"","icon":"","attachmentId":""},{"type":"dataset","id":1107,"label":"Diet\/Gambling\/Movies","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/dataset\/dietgamblingmovies\/"}],"report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Americans See Weight Problems Everywhere But In the Mirror","parent_id":42383},"materialsOrdered":[{"key":"07f29fd1-6b92-40f4-b6f0-c515f2ebccbd","type":"report","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/10\/Obesity.pdf","label":"","attachmentId":0,"icon":""}],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Americans See Weight Problems Everywhere But In the Mirror","description":"Americans believe their fellow Americans have gotten fat. They consider this a serious national problem. But when they think about weight, they appear to use different scales for different people.","og_title":"Americans See Weight Problems Everywhere But In the Mirror","og_description":"Americans believe their fellow Americans have gotten fat. They consider this a serious national problem. But when they think about weight, they appear to use different scales for different people.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":1785934558,"gsc_index_status":{"verdict":"PASS","coverage_state":"Submitted and indexed","robotstxt_state":"ALLOWED","indexing_state":"INDEXING_ALLOWED","last_crawl_time":"2026-07-23T23:04:53Z","page_fetch_state":"SUCCESSFUL","crawled_as":"MOBILE","mobile_verdict":"VERDICT_UNSPECIFIED","mobile_issues":[],"rich_results_verdict":"PASS","rich_results_issues":[],"inspection_link":"https:\/\/search.google.com\/search-console\/inspect?resource_id=sc-domain:pewresearch.org&id=3rw2Z9yCui3U3S2vVlT9yw&utm_medium=link&utm_source=api","fetched_at":1785934564}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42383"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354539,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42383\/revisions\/354539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=42383"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=42383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}