Are You Happy with Your Weight? Exclusive Survey from Fitness Magazine & Yahoo! Shine Exposes How Men & Women Deal with the Battle of the Bulge

Are You Happy with Your Weight? Exclusive Survey from Fitness Magazine & Yahoo! Shine Exposes How Men & Women Deal with the Battle of the Bulge

Majority of adults admit to not being at their ideal weight;
48% of women feel fat on a weekly basis; 59% of women want to lose 10-20 lbs
Halle Berry named celebrity body confidence women want

America’s quest for weight loss is never-ending, according to a new survey from FITNESS Magazine and Yahoo! Shine. The exclusive survey asked 2,001 women and men to reveal how they feel about their weight and if being skinny really matters. The survey revealed that 38% of adults and 48% of women say they “feel fat” on a weekly basis; 41% of adults believe that losing weight would positively impact their lives. More than half of the adults polled (53%) and 59% of women polled said they wanted to lose 10-20 pounds.

The results appear in the 20^th anniversary issue of FITNESS, on stands April 17, 2012, and online at Yahoo! Shine, the leading site for women’s lifestyle content. Highlights from the findings are below.

Happy at Your Ideal Weight?

The survey revealed that 74% of adults aren’t currently at their goal weight; 44% of women and 38% of men believe they would be happier at their ideal weight.

Adults said if they were at their goal weight they believed they would:

•	Be happier				41%
•	Have a better love life				18%
•	Make more money				7 %
•	Have more friends				5 %

Celeb Body Confidence

28% of women said they wished they could steal Halle Berry’s body confidence.

Here’s how other celebs stacked up:

	•	Halle Berry				28%
	•	Beyonce				20%
	•	Kate Winslet				15%
	•	Kim Kardashian				8 %
	•	Adele				6 %

Fat Days

• 48% of women admitted to having an “I feel fat” day once a week or more, compared to only 28% of men. 19% of women polled said they felt fat every day.
• 40% of women and 22% of men noted saving “fat clothes” – clothes that are too big – in their closet in case they gain a few pounds.

Dare to Compare

• Women are tough critics: 31% thought they looked fatter compared to other women, and only 10% thought they looked better.
• Not surprisingly, men weren’t as hard on themselves. 18% thought they looked just as good as other men, with only 16% admitting to believing that they looked fatter.

Battle of the Bulge

55% of women and 43% of men polled admitted that after gaining weight, they would watch what they ate, but they wouldn’t resort to extreme dieting.

What women do when they gain weight:

•	Watch what I eat, but don’t go on a diet				55%
•	Head to the gym/start exercising				17%
•	Drown my sorrows in cookies/candy				12%
•	Start a diet immediately				10%
•	Curse out the scale				10%

Body Issues

• 51% of women have deleted a photo of themselves because they thought they looked fat versus 21% of men. Young women (age 18-34) were more likely to do so, with 60% hitting delete.
• 33% of women have been too embarrassed to change clothes in public compared to only 21% of men. Another 20% of women have bought clothes that are too small in hopes of one day fitting into them; only 9% of men have done this.
• 43% of women said a husband or boyfriend was the person most likely to make them feel good about their weight, followed by best friend (13%), sister (6%), and mother (5%).

Full survey results available by request.

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About the Survey:

Yahoo! partnered with Ipsos MediaCT to conduct the Yahoo! Shine weight survey in January 2012. We interviewed n=2,001 Americans ages 18 to 64 representative of the U.S. online population via an online quantitative survey.

About FITNESS magazine

Launched in 1992, FITNESS magazine is a leading source for all the latest news on health, nutrition and exercise. The magazine and its partner website, fitnessmagazine.com, are devoted to delivering strategies and tools that help women make little changes to achieve big success. With a you-can-do-it attitude, our workouts, health and beauty advice, diet plans and success stories motivate readers to get strong in mind, body and spirit. The magazine empowers women to embrace fitness as a lifestyle—not an age or dress size—and to change the conversation from "skinny" to "healthy." FITNESS is published 10 times a year by Meredith Corporation [NYSE: MDP], with a rate base of 1.5 million and an audience of 7.4 million readers. For more information, please visit www.fitnessmagazine.com.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! is the premier digital media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. And Yahoo!’s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.com) or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com). Follow us @YahooInc

Shine is the leading site for women’s lifestyle content with more than 31 million visitors per month.

FITNESS Magazine
Carrie Carlson, 212-551-7053
carrie.carlson@meredith.com
or
Yahoo! Global Communications
Becky Auslander, 212-381-6909
beckya@yahoo-inc.com