The Moderating Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Relationships Between Obesity Framing and Stigmatization of Fat People

Abstract

Framings of “obesity” have been associated with more stigmatization of fat people when weight is presented as the result of individual behavior. No research to date has examined how the effects of “obesity” framing interact with demographic characteristics of the fat person being evaluated. In this study, 198 adult men and women read information about “obesity” presented in one of three frames: a standard individual responsibility frame, a frame emphasizing the role of “obesogenic” environments such as industrial food production and urban design, and a frame claiming that the harms of “obesity” have been overstated, before reading a brief description of an fat target person that varied on socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Participants in the overstated framing condition rated the fat target as more competent and more moral compared to those in the individual responsibility condition, although this effect was restricted to high-SES targets. These findings are discussed in terms of the ideological functions of weight stigma.

Keywords:

• socioeconomic status
• stigma reduction
• weight framing
• weight stigma

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks Rhiannon Emory, Melissa Lowe, Nathini Nathan, Katja Petrusic, Nicollette Swanson, Kathryn Taylor, and Giorgia Viaggo for assistance with the data collection.