She points to research that found children as young as 5 felt it’s wrong to be fat. Asked by researchers if they would rather be fat or lose an arm, more said they’d prefer to do without the limb.
This is something Virgie keeps parroting, and I've always been curious where it came from. Digging around, I see a Canadian pediatric psychiatrist made this claim during testimony in a parliamentary committee on the status of women in Canada during 2014.
You can find various instances of it being used, for instance in this woman's 2007 thesis where a news article claims she is "quoting American studies".
http://nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10439312
It appears in written form without any references as far back as 1998 in Marilyn Wann's Fat!So? "fat bible" where it's a pol" rather than a study, and six year olds rather than five year olds.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RYE5r4EuxJsC&lpg=PA97&ots=HWCXymRuwM&pg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false
I hate that in a recent poll, little six-year-olds would rather lose an arm than be fat.
I can't find anything further back. In fact, I can find only one study where a similar question was asked, and the response was overwhelmingly negative. The authors even specifically noted it as a sacrifice people were generally unwilling to make.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2006.58/full
There are some sacrifices that people generally seem to be unwilling to make: overall, only 5% of respondents reported that they would rather lose a limb than be obese, and only 4% of respondents reported that they would rather be blind than be obese.
So basically it looks like FAs and eating disorder specialists have been parroting some bullshit Marilyn Wann included in her book in the late 90s. WTF.