Associations of Abdominal Fat With Perceived Racism and Passive Emotional Responses to Racism in African American Women

Abstract

Findings support an association between daily stress and WHR but do not support our hypothesis that passive emotional responses to perceived racism increase abdominal fat. Further study of the stress physiology of perceived racism in African American women is warranted.

The Association Between Perceived Discrimination and Obesity in a Population-Based Multiracial and Multiethnic Adult Sample

“…7,8 Consistent with other studies, 9,13,16,41 our analyses show that perceived experiences of unfair treatment were associated with increased abdominal obesity after we controlled for other confounding characteristics. Contrary to our expectations, though, this pattern was only evident among Whites of Irish, Jewish, Polish, and Italian ancestry in Chicago.…”

“…9 These researchers posit that individuals with relatively high levels of internalized racism have adopted a defeatist mindset, which is believed to be related to the physiological pathway associated with excess body fat accumulation. However, Vines et al 16 found that perceived racism was associated with lower waist-to-hip ratios among Black women in the United States. Although the assessment of race-related risk factors varied across these studies, the findings suggest that the salience of race-related beliefs and experiences may be related to excess body fat accumulation.…”

“…1,2,5 There is a growing interest in the relationship between psychosocial risk factors and excess body fat accumulation. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In particular, some evidence suggests that psychosocial stressors may play a role in disease progression in general and in excess body fat in particular. 7,8,17 The key factors underlying physiological reactions to psychosocial stress have not been completely elucidated, but McEwen and Seeman 17 and others 7,18,19 posit that the continued adaptation of the physiological system to external challenges alters the normal physiological stress reaction pathways and that these changes are related to adverse health outcomes.…”

“…First, because they examined the relationship between race-related beliefs and experiences and excess body fat only among women, we do not know if this relationship is generalizable to men. 13,16,41 Second, these studies only examined this relationship among Blacks, even though perceived unfair treatment because of race/ethnicity has been shown to be adversely related to the health of multiple racial/ethnic population groups in the United States 42-49 and internationally. 27,[50][51][52][53][54][55] Third, none of the studies have examined the relationship between excess body fat accumulation and perceived nonracial/nonethnic experiences of interpersonal discrimination.…”

Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship

“…In addition to this mechanism, it is plausible that individuals may overeat as a coping mechanism. There are many examples in the literature that find an association between discrimination and weight (Tull et al, 1999;Cozier et al, 2009;Butler et al, 2002;Chambers et al, 2004;Gee et al, 2008;Vines et al, 2007).…”