Exhibit A: Last year, nutritionists presented data from a study of middle-aged Americans. Participants were asked to classify themselves as underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. Then they were weighed. Only 15 percent of obese people, compared with more than 70 percent of normal and overweight people, classified themselves correctly.

Exhibit B: In a 1985 survey by the NPD group, 55 percent of U.S. adults agreed that "[a] person who is not overweight is a lot more attractive." By 2005, only 24 percent agreed. The firm concluded, "Perhaps Americans have found that the easiest way to deal with their weight is to change their attitude."

Woah. These are amazing facts.

I've not written a lot about my struggle with my weight (coming up on nine months maintaing my weight-loss) but these two studies look to quantify some things that I feel, intuitively, as someone with a little experience with the subject, to be true.

Pulled from the most recent Human Nature column by Will Saletan at Slate. The article to which it is an addendum was pretty good to begin with.