A survey has found that America's attitudes toward overweight people are shifting from one of rejection to acceptance.
Over a 20 year period, the percentage of Americans who said they find overweight people less attractive steadily dropped from 55 per cent to 24 per cent, market research firm NPD Group has found.
With about two-thirds of US adults overweight, Americans seem more accepting of heavier body types, researchers say.
The NPD survey, to be published in February in the journal Rationality and Society questioned 1,900 people representative of the US population and found more relaxed attitudes about weight and diet.
While body image remains a constant obsession, the US preoccupation with being thin has waned since the late 1980s and early 1990s, said the NPD's Harry Balzer.
Those were the days when fast food chains rushed to install salad bars.
In 1989, salads as a main course peaked at 10 per cent of all restaurant meals. Today, those salad bars have all but vanished and salads account for just 5.5 per cent of main dishes.
"It turns out health is a wonderful topic to talk about," Balzer said.
"But to live that way is a real effort."
Fewer people said they're trying to "avoid snacking entirely" - just 26 per cent in 2005, down from 45 per cent in 1985. While 75 per cent said they had low-fat, no-fat or reduced fat products in the last two weeks, down from 86 per cent in 1999, according to the survey.
At 1.67 metres and 104 kg, Lara Frater likes her body just fine and turns up her nose at trendy diets.
"I don't beat myself up if I have a piece of cake," said Ms Frater, a 34-year-old New Yorker and author of Fat Chicks Rule.
The survey's findings aren't that surprising, as attitudes about weight constantly shift, said John Cawley, associate professor at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology.
"I don't think we're going to go back to worshipping obese women, but it's interesting to see how attitudes change as more people become overweight," Mr Cawley said.
Others argue that people are merely becoming more politically correct and that bias against fat people is actually growing sharper.
"These studies don't pick up on implicit, unconscious bias," said Kelly Brownell, head of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.
"It's like if you asked people around the country if they had racial bias. There's a difference between what people say and what actually happens," he added.
Researchers at Cornell also found that negative attitudes about obesity persist.
The NPD study results may simply be a sign of "resignation from overweight people," Mr Brownell said, noting that it's likely a majority of survey respondents are overweight.