A study in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology reports that of 2,224 women taking part in an assessment of “perceptions of body weight and weight-related behaviors,” just one in four considered themselves overweight. In fact, when the 2,224 women had their BMI calculated, 1,162 — that’s over half — surpassed the BMI’s overweight barrier of 25.  (Curiously, of the 1,062 women who were normal weight, 16 percent perceived themselves as being overweight.)

The big problem here is that if you don’t recognize there’s a problem, you won’t try to correct it.

“They see overweight people everywhere they go,” Dr. Mahbubur Rahman, one of the authors of the study, told WebMD, “and this has become the new norm for them.” Rahman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

For more on the study, “Self-Perception of Weight and Its Association With Weight-Related Behaviors in Young, Reproductive-Aged Women,” go here.

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