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Articles

Anti-Fat Biases of Occupational and Physical Therapy Assistants

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Pages 63-83 | Received 03 May 2021, Accepted 21 Aug 2021, Published online: 30 Aug 2021
 

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.

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 (Citation2012): “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 (Citation2010) found the language “obese people” produces stronger negative connocations than “fat people.”

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