Examining weight bias attitudes and obesity beliefs among undergraduate students

Abstract

Objective: This cross-sectional study examined the weight bias attitudes and obesity beliefs of health science (HS), nursing, and pre-medicine undergraduate students. Methods: Using snowballing and convenience sampling strategies, students (N = 139) completed an online survey, including a 24-item Antifat Attitudes Scale (AFAS) and eight-item Belief About Obese Persons (BAOP) scale. Results: HS students have higher weight bias than nursing and pre-medicine students combined (M = 43.45, SD = 10.75), t(137) = −2.45, p = .016). A negative correlation exists between AFAS and BAOP suggesting high weight bias influences a belief that obesity is controllable. Gender positively predicted weight bias attitudes (ß = −11.43, t = −4.33, p < .001) and obesity beliefs (ß = 3.75, t = 3.01, p = . 003). Conclusions: Findings confirm that HS students have weight bias attitudes. This supports undergraduate curricular changes on obesity etiology that may improve treatment plans of individuals who are obese.

Keywords:

• Antifat attitudes
• obesity
• obesity beliefs
• undergraduate students
• weight bias attitudes

Author contributions

All of the authors have made contributions to the drafting and writing of this manuscript and have approved of the final version.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding

Not applicable.

Statement of ethics

Subjects have given their written informed consent and the study protocol was approved by the authors universities Intuitional Review Boards, approval numbers: 1701886-1 and 1646143-1.

Data availability statement

All confidential data from this research is kept on a password protected computer accessible only to the lead author (corresponding author). Data will be stored for a minimum of three years following the publication of this manuscript.