“Participants served and ate a significantly larger amount of unhealthy food when they saw an overweight eating companion than when they saw a normal-weight eating companion,” Shimizu and his colleagues write.

Regardless of whether she served herself healthy or unhealthy portions, they report, “participants served and ate a larger amount of pasta when she was overweight than when she was normal weight.”

What’s more, participants ate less salad when that first woman appeared overweight and served herself a healthy meal (as opposed to when she appeared overweight and ate a lot of pasta). It’s plausible that the image of her attempting to eat a healthy diet, but failing to lose weight, inspired a why-bother, I’ll-eat-what-I-want attitude.

In any event, the fear of stigma wasn’t scaring anyone skinny.