Anti-Fat Biases of Occupational and Physical Therapy Assistants

Abstract

Fat people are highly stigmatized, and anti-fat bias is pervasive resulting in stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, including in health care. The aim of this study was to explore occupational and physical therapy assistants’ anti-fat biases. We analyzed secondary weight implicit association tests from 5,671 occupational/physical therapy assistants. The overwhelming majority (82%) of occupational/physical therapy assistants were implicitly prejudiced against fat people. Interventions for occupational/physical therapy assistants’ anti-fat biases are critical, especially with increasing prevalence and responsibilities of occupational/physical therapy assistants in the provision of rehabilitation services.

Keywords:

• Anti-fat bias
• discrimination
• fat people
• fatphobia
• occupational therapy
• physical therapy

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Availability of data

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://doi.org/10.5334/jopd.ac

Notes

1 The word “fat” is utilized rather than other descriptors for the reasons detailed by Fikkan and Rothblum (2012): “we prefer to use the term ‘fat’, as it is descriptive, whereas the term ‘overweight’ implies unfavorable comparison to a normative standard and ‘obese’ is a medical term with its own negative connotations” (p. 577). Furthermore, Vartanian (2010) found the language “obese people” produces stronger negative connocations than “fat people.”