Adults’ attitudes toward children, adolescents, and adults who are obese and tax-funded programs to combat obesity

ABSTRACT

The goals of the present study were to assess (1) adults’ patterns of beliefs about and attitudes toward children, adolescents, and adults who are obese and (2) their attitudes toward hypothetical tax-funded programs designed to combat obesity in children, adolescents, and adults. A total of 267 participants, ranging in age from 19 to 88 years old, were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to participate online in the present study. The participants rated adults who are obese less favorably, and as less malleable, than children or adolescents who are obese. Furthermore, they were less supportive of tax-funded programs designed to combat obesity in adults than children or adolescents. In general, the participants’ relatively unfavorable response to adults who are obese appears to be associated with the beliefs that older individuals who are obese are relatively unchangeable and have heightened personal fault for their plight.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• adults
• attitudes
• beliefs
• children
• obesity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/b5uw4.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/b5uw4.

Notes

1. Rand and Wright (2000, 2001) examined individuals’ perceptions of ideal body sizes in babies, children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults, using line drawing stimuli ranging from very thin to obese. Although these studies revealed a general disdain for individuals depicted as obese, the topic of ideal body size is beyond the scope of the present investigation.

2. In one study of adults’ attitudes toward childhood obesity (Evans et al., 2005), the participants “supported most school-, community-, and media-based strategies that involved offering health information, limiting unhealthy food promotion, and increasing healthy nutrition and physical activity choices, but were generally opposed to regulatory and tax- or cost-based interventions” (p. 26).

3. For a discussion of the increasing use of MTurk samples in social and personality psychology research, see Anderson et al. (2019).

4. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on an individual’s height and weight. The formula for calculating BMI using pounds and inches is as follows: weight (in pounds)/height (in inches)² x 703. BMI is assessed to determine the extent to which an individual’s body weight departs from what is considered normal or desirable for his or her height. An individual may be classified as underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese based on his or her BMI.

5. The statements on the questionnaire reflect beliefs that have been found in our lab to be associated with individuals’ attitudes toward, and anticipated responses to, a broad range of targets described as having an undesirable desirable, such as being extremely aggressive or extremely overweight (Barnett, Wadian et al., 2015; Barnett et al., 2010, 2012; Barnett, Sonnentag et al., 2015; Wadian et al., 2019).

6. There are six different orders in which participants’ general attitudes toward children who are obese (A), adolescents who are obese (B), and adults who are obese (C) could be assessed: A/B/C, A/C/B, B/A/C, B/C/A, C/A/B, C/B/A. The number of participants who rated their general attitudes in each of the six orders ranged from 44 to 46.

7. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (i.e., the second author) upon request.

8. We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for encouraging us to conduct these specific exploratory analyses.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark A. Barnett

Mark A. Barnett is a Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University who studies social cognition and social-emotional development.  His recent investigations have examined (a) children’s reactions to peers with various undesirable characteristics and (b) antisocial, prosocial, and ambiguous teasing in children.

Tucker L. Jones

Tucker L. Jones is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University.  His primary research interest focuses on how individuals perceive and respond to ambiguous social interactions.

Kennedy A. Schmitt

Kennedy A. Schmitt is a former undergraduate in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University. Her research interests include perceptions and experience of students with learning disabilities.

Kyla C. Cordas

Kyla C. Cordas a former undergraduate student within the Department of Psychological Sciences at Kansas State University.  Her research interests include mental health stigmatization and the effects of labeling.

Sarah Harrod

Sarah Harrod is an undergraduate student within the Department of Psychological sciences at Kansas State University.  Her research interests include self-fulfilling prophecies and the effects of labeling.  Sarah is currently pursuing Bachelor’s degrees in both Psychology and Criminology.