Can she be healthy at her weight? Effects of news media frames on antifat attitudes, dieting intentions, and perceived health risks of obesity.

Abstract

News media reports of medical studies typically support the traditional public health crisis frame, which describes fatness as inherently unhealthy and under personal control. Less often, news articles emphasize the Health at Every Size (HAES) perspective that fatness is not inherently unhealthy and is largely beyond individual control. Messages supporting and challenging the acceptability of stigmatizing fatness also routinely appear (pro-vs. antistigma frames). We tested whether these competing frames affect attitudes toward fat people. Across 3 experiments (N ϭ 2,964), adults completed survey measures after reading constructed news articles describing competing frames of fatness. Compared with people who read fat-positive frames (healthy, uncontrollable, antistigma), people who read fat-negative frames (unhealthy, controllable, prostigma) expressed more belief in the health risks of being fat (ds ϭ 0.90 -1.05), skepticism that women categorized as overweight or obese can be healthy at their weights (ds ϭ 0.51-.65), intentions to diet if they gained weight (ds ϭ 0.23-0.41), support for charging obese people more for health insurance (ds ϭ 0.26 -0.77), antifat attitudes (ds ϭ 0.19 -0.45), negative judgments of fat people (ds ϭ 0.17-0.19), support for weight-based job discrimination and prejudice (ds ϭ 0.36 -0.66), and less willingness to celebrate body-size diversity (ds ϭ 0.35-0.71). However, adding antistigma messages to public health crisis frames somewhat tempered the expression of prejudice. We conclude that news media frames have immediate impacts on weight-related attitudes.

An Evidence‐Based Rationale for Adopting Weight‐Inclusive Health Policy

“…In over 2,000 participants, they observed higher levels in the former group of several indicators of weight stigma, including willingness to discriminate on the basis of weight (Frederick, Saguy, Sandhu, & Mann, ). These findings were later replicated in another 3,000 individuals (Frederick, Tomiyama, Bold, & Saguy, ). Moreover, large‐scale survey research in the United States has found that health messages emphasizing positive behavior change are rated as more motivating and elicit less negative responses than health messages that incorporate stigmatizing elements (Puhl, Peterson, & Luedicke, 2013), a finding that was replicated experimentally, leading the authors to note that it “challenges the notion that stigmatization is a necessary component of public health messaging about obesity, and suggests that this approach may be less effective than nonstigmatizing messages in efforts to encourage health behaviors” (p. 44).…”

Weight Stigma as a Predictor of Distress and Maladaptive Eating Behaviors During COVID-19: Longitudinal Findings From the EAT Study

“…Understanding whether weight stigma elevates risk for health challenges during the pandemic represents a critical first step for the development of health messaging, responses, and support during outbreaks of COVID-19 and similar public health emergencies. Furthermore, previous evidence demonstrating that news messaging about obesity and its health risks can reinforce weight stigma, dieting intentions, and negative weight-related attitudes [ 22 , 23 ] underscores the importance of examining weight stigma during this time period of heightened media attention to obesity as a risk factor for COVID-19 complications. However, almost nothing is known about weight stigma in the context of COVID-19.…”

Weight stigma and obesity‐related policies: A systematic review of the state of the literature

“…Individual attributions for obesity or holding negative views of people living with obesity were associated with support for policies that negatively impacted/stigmatized people living in larger bodies in most studies that investigated this relationship specifically 33,34,56,58 . Similarly, willingness to pay taxes for healthy eating policies was higher when obesity was ascribed to the supply environment 41 .…”

“…Exceptions included antidiscrimination policies based on weight (nonstigmatizing), 38,47,48,60,63 policies that denied women living with obesity access to fertility treatment (stigmatizing), 67 punitive warning labels on soft drinks that negatively depicted obesity using graphic imagery (stigmatizing), 37 and punitive price-raising policies that punish people for living with obesity (stigmatizing). 32,34,44,58 3.4.1 | Studies of weight bias predictors of obesityrelated policies focused on the prevention or treatment of obesity Most studies that were focused on weight bias predictors of prevention and treatment-related obesity policies explored causal attributions and assigning responsibility for obesity (n = 25). In general, support for obesity-related policies was higher when individuals agreed more strongly with attributions for obesity that were beyond personal control (e.g., obesity can be attributed to environmental availability of unhealthy foods) when compared with attributing obesity to lack of willpower and individual responsibility.…”