To describe the stigmatization of obesity in medieval times in Asia and in Europe. Literature review. Obesity was stigmatized in medieval Japan in part, at least, because it was viewed as the karmic consequence of a moral failing in a Buddhist context. The stigma in Europe was based on the Christian deadly sin of gluttony. Stigmatization of obesity is not new. It was foreshadowed centuries ago by attitudes deriving from then extant theories of the origins of obesity.