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Obviously the headline is a play on the well-known film "Real Women Have Curves," which became the battle cry for all other-than-skinny Latinas. But according to researchers at Arizona State University (ASU), more and more Latinos see a woman's curves as anything but sexy.

Researchers at the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts collected data from 10 countries and territories, including the U.S., on their cultural attitudes towards fat and obesity.

The findings were disappointing.

Countries that at one time viewed obesity in a neutral or positive light were now found to view it negatively, to the point of stigmatizing obese individuals.

In "Body Norms and Fat Stigma in Global Perspective," researchers found that in countries like Puerto Rico, Paraguay and Mexico, where obesity used to be considered "normal," there was now an anti-fat attitude.

In fact, among all the countries, Mexico and Paraguay had the highest fat stigma scores. The researchers credit this global spread of stigmatizing overweight people with public health or fitness campaigns that target obese individuals as the ones at fault for gaining weight rather than including social or environmental factors that contribute to weight gain.

"Stigma causes prejudice and discrimination and a lot of emotional suffering. The spread of stigmatizing ideas has the potential to do enormous social damage," said Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change and director of the Center for Global Health. READ MORE