Nov 12, 2014 11:00 PM EST By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that the majority of people -- including healthcare professionals -- are unable to visually identify whether a person is a healthy weight, overweight or obese.

Researchers from the University Institute of Psychology, Health and Society found that the majority of the people involved in their study were unable to correctly identify whether they were a healthy weight, overweight or obese person.

"We wanted to find out if people can identify a healthy, overweight or obese person just by looking at them," Eric Robinson, who conducted the research, said in a statement.

For the study, participants were asked to look at photographs of male models and categorize whether they were a healthy weight, overweight or obese according to World Health Organization (WHO) Body Mass Index (BMI) guidelines.

They found that the majority of participants were unable to correctly identify whether they were a healthy weight, overweight or obese person. Participants instead underestimated weight, often believing that overweight men were a healthy weight.

In a related study, researchers also found that general practitioners (GPs) and trainee GPs were unable to visually identify if a person was overweight or obese.

The researchers also examined whether increased exposure to overweight and obese people affected a person's ability to estimate the weight of a person. Their findings suggested that exposure to heavier body weights may influence what people see as a normal and healthy weight and causes people to underestimate a person's weight.

"Primarily we found that people were often very inaccurate and this included trainee doctors and qualified doctors too," Robinson said. "Moreover, we found that participants systematically underestimated when a person was overweight or obese."

Recent studies have found that parents underestimate their overweight or obese child's weight and this could also act as a barrier to intervention.

"Over the last 30 years we have seen changes to population body weight, so examining how this has affected how we view our own and other people's body sizes is an interesting area of research," Robinson said.

The United Kingdom has the highest level of obesity in Western Europe. Obesity levels have more than trebled in the last 30 years and, on current estimates, more than half the population could be obese by 2050. More than half of the adult population in the European Union are overweight or obese.

The findings are detailed in the British Journal of General Practice.

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