Subjective disgust and facial electromyography responses towards unedited and morphed overweight self-pictures in women with varying levels of eating disorder symptomatology.

Individuals with an eating disorder (ED) often report to be disgusted by their body. Body-related self-disgust could play an important role in the development and maintenance of EDs. We investigated if women with relatively high ED symptom scores indeed respond with disgust upon exposure to their body as indexed by facial electromyography (fEMG) of the m. levator labii superioris and self-report. Given that one's self-disgust may increase/decrease depending on the relative distance of the own body to the thin ideal, we also assessed women's disgust for overweight- and thin-morphs of their body. Female undergraduate students (N = 104) were photographed and presented with their (morphed) body pictures, next to disgust-relevant and overweight body control pictures. Higher levels of ED symptoms were associated with stronger self-reported disgust to unedited body-pictures and overweight-morphs. Disgust to thin-morphs was unrelated to ED symptoms. Participants generally showed heightened facial disgust towards overweight morphs, yet the strength of facial disgust was unrelated to ED symptoms. Thus, the findings provide evidence for the involvement of heightened body-related self-disgust in ED symptomatology, albeit only on the basis of self-report.

Anti-Fat Biases of Occupational and Physical Therapy Assistants.

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.

Weight Bias 2.0: The Effect of Perceived Weight Change on Performance Evaluation and the Moderating Role of Anti-fat Bias.

Overweight employees are viewed as lazy, slow, inactive, and even incapable. Even if such attributes are false, this perspective can seriously undermine others' evaluation of their work performance. The current study explores a broader phenomenon of weight bias that has an effect on weight change. In a longitudinal study with a time lag of 6 months, we surveyed 226 supervisor-employee dyads. We found supervisor perceptions of employee weight change notably altered their evaluation of the employee performance from Time 1, especially following low vs. high Time-1 performance evaluation. Meanwhile, the moderating effects among different levels of supervisor anti-fat bias functioned as boundary conditions for such performance evaluation alteration. In particular, the interaction between the Time-1 performance evaluation and the impact of supervisor perception of employee weight change on the Time-2 performance evaluation was significant only if supervisors held a stronger anti-fat bias.

More than a "monstrous obesity"! Time to overcome the "anti-fat" bias.

A 54-years-old woman complained of unintentional important body weight gain associated with abdominal bloating. For this reason, she had consulted many different diet and nutritional professionals, general practitioners and a gastroenterology specialist, but no one went beyond a simple diagnosis of "monstrous obesity". At our hospital division, based on physical examination, a computed tomography (CT) of the abdomen and pelvis was performed. It showed a voluminous intraperitoneal mass occupying the most part of the abdomen. The patient underwent laparotomy with resection of the abdomino-pelvic mass, originating from the left ovary, measuring 60 x 45 cm and weighing 46 kg. Histopathology examination revealed a tumor composed of three different areas, including a well-differentiated adenocarcinoma of intestinal-type. It is emblematic of a grotesque misdiagnosis generated by a non-comprehensive patient assessment and consequently by a too quick judgement related to the "anti-fat bias".

Análise das diretrizes brasileiras de obesidade: patologização do corpo gordo, abordagem focada na perda de peso e gordofobia / Analysis of Brazilian guidelines for obesity: pathologization of fat bodies, an approach focused on weight loss and anti-fat bias

Resumo Atualmente a obesidade é considerada um dos maiores desafios da saúde pública. Ela vem sendo enfrentada a partir do incentivo de mudanças comportamentais individuais, exaltando a perda de peso como forma inquestionável de garantir saúde. Tendo em vista este contexto e a importância das Diretrizes brasileiras de obesidade sobre o campo da obesidade, sua influência sobre a prática profissional, o tipo de tratamento incentivado e o processo decisório em relação aos corpos gordos, foi realizada uma análise deste documento, associada à emergente discussão de como o discurso da saúde justifica e reproduz a gordofobia da sociedade. A análise se deu primeiramente em relação à patologização do corpo gordo e como isto é acompanhado de uma valorização do corpo magro. Em seguida, discute-se a abordagem normativa do peso, que propõe intervenções individuais sempre focadas na perda de peso. Pode-se notar que o discurso presente nas Diretrizes reforça a saúde inerente dos corpos magros, reproduz estereótipos relacionados ao corpo gordo e relaciona diretamente quilos perdidos com melhor nível de saúde.

Abstract Obesity is now considered one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century and has been fought against with the promotion of individual behavioral changes, glorifying weight loss as an unquestionable way to ensure health. Given this context and the importance of the Brazilian Guidelines for Obesity on the obesity field, its influence on professional practice, on the type of treatment that is to be encouraged and on the decision-making process concerning fat bodies, an analysis of this document was performed, as it is associated with an emerging discussion on how the health discourse justifies and reproduces anti-fat bias in society. The analysis first concerned the pathologization of fat bodies and how this is accompanied by a valuation of lean bodies. It is then followed by a discussion on the normative approach of weight, which proposes individual interventions that are always focused on weight loss. The discourse present in these guidelines reinforces the inherent health of lean bodies, reproduces stereotypes related to fat bodies, and directly relates lost pounds to better health.

Shaping the Body Politic: Mass Media Fat-Shaming Affects Implicit Anti-Fat Attitudes.

The human psyche is profoundly shaped by its cultural milieu; however, few studies have examined the dynamics of cultural influence in everyday life, especially when it comes to shaping people's automatic, implicit attitudes. In this quasi-experimental field study, we investigated the effect of transient, but salient, cultural messages-the pop-cultural phenomenon of celebrity "fat-shaming"-on implicit anti-fat attitudes in the population. Adopting the "copycat suicide" methodology, we identified 20 fat-shaming events in the media; next, we obtained data from Project Implicit of participants who had completed the Weight Implicit Association Test from 2004 to 2015. As predicted, fat-shaming led to a spike in women's (N=93,239) implicit anti-fat attitudes, with events of greater notoriety producing greater spikes. We also observed a general increase in implicit anti-fat attitudes over time. Although these passing comments may appear harmless, we show that feedback at the cultural level can be registered by the "body politic."

The psychological and physiological effects of interacting with an anti-fat peer.

This experiment tested whether interacting with a peer who holds explicitly anti-fat attitudes leads to cognitive performance deficits and poorer psychological and cardiovascular outcomes among higher body weight women by increasing anticipated rejection. One hundred and forty six higher body weight women were randomly assigned to interact in a non-romantic context with a same-sex peer who endorsed explicit anti-fat or unbiased attitudes. All women showed greater heart rate reactivity and anger when interacting with an anti-fat peer. The heavier women were, and the more they thought they were overweight, the more they anticipated rejection when interacting with an anti-fat peer. This anticipated rejection was in turn associated with poorer cognitive performance, lower state self-esteem, and increased negative emotions, rumination, compensatory efforts, and thoughts related to anxiety and evaluation. These effects were not observed among women in our sample categorized as slightly "overweight" or who perceived themselves as only slightly overweight.

Implicit and explicit anti-fat bias: The role of weight-related attitudes and beliefs.

INTRODUCTION: The increasing prevalence of anti-fat bias in American society comes at a great cost to the health and well-being of people who are overweight or obese. A better understanding of the correlates of anti-fat bias would inform development of interventions for reducing anti-fat bias. Based on three theoretical perspectives, this study tested the relation between attitudes and beliefs about weight and anti-fat bias (implicit and explicit): (1) The belief that one is like people who are fat (social identity theory). (2) The belief that one can control her/his weight (attribution theory). And (3) the beliefs that most people prefer thin people and that weight is important (socio-cultural theory). METHODS: Participants were 66,799 volunteers (47,265 women, mean age of 27.88 ±â€¯11.9 years) who completed the Thin-Fat Implicit Association Test on the Project Implicit website (https://implicit.harvard.edu/) during 2016. Explicit anti-fat bias and weight-related attitudes and beliefs were assessed by self-report. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to examine links between weight-related attitudes and beliefs and anti-fat bias. RESULTS: All tested weight-related attitudes and beliefs were significantly (p < .001) correlated with explicit and implicit anti-fat bias, but some of the correlations were very weak. An examination of the relative contribution of the tested weight-related attitudes and beliefs to a model explaining anti-fat bias suggested that the strongest correlates of explicit anti-fat bias were the beliefs that weight was important (ß = 0.194, p < .001), that most people prefer thin people (ß = 0.177, p < .001), and that the respondent was like people who are fat (ß = -0.180, p < .001). DISCUSSION: The social-identity and socio-cultural theories may provide a stronger explanation for anti-fat bias relative to attribution theory. Future research could use longitudinal designs with more reliable measures in order to verify these cross-sectional findings.

Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation of the extrastriate visual cortex modulates implicit anti-fat bias in male, but not female, participants.

Explicit negative attitudes toward obese individuals are well documented and seem to modulate the activity of perceptual areas, such as the Extrastriate Body Area (EBA) in the lateral occipito-temporal cortex, which is critical for body-shape perception. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether EBA serves a role in implicit weight-stereotypical bias, thus reflecting stereotypical trait attribution on the basis of perceptual cues. Here, we used an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate whether applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over bilateral extrastriate visual cortex reduces pre-existing implicit weight stereotypical associations (i.e. "Bad" with Fat and "Good" with Slim, valence-IAT). Furthermore, an esthetic-IAT, which focused on body-concepts related to esthetic dimensions (i.e. "Ugly" and "Beauty"), was developed as a control condition. Anodal, cathodal, or sham tDCS (2mA, 10min) over the right and left lateral occipito-temporal (extrastriate visual) cortex was administered to 13 female and 12male participants, before performing the IATs. Results showed that cathodal stimulation over the left extrastriate visual cortex reduced weight-bias for the evaluative dimensions (Bad vs. Good) as compared to sham stimulation over the same hemisphere. Furthermore, the effect was specific for the polarity and hemisphere of stimulation. Importantly, tDCS affected the responses only in male participants, who presented a reliable weight-bias during sham condition, but not in female participants, who did not show reliable weight-bias at sham condition. The present results suggest that negative attitudes toward obese individuals may reflect neural signals from the extrastriate visual cortex.

Implicit and explicit anti-fat bias among Asian females.

Obesity is not only associated with an increased risk of numerous health problems, but also with high rates of stigmatization and weight-related bias. Anti-fat attitudes have been shown to be prevalent in Western samples; however, there is a lack of studies investigating both implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in Asian populations. There is also limited research investigating the relationship between anti-fat attitudes and weight-related behavioral intentions. Thus, this study aimed to examine anti-fat bias and its effect on behavioral intentions using three types of measures-implicit, explicit, and a revised behavioral intention measure-in a sample of 104 Asian females in Singapore. Significant differences were found between implicit and explicit bias: on average, participants exhibited strong implicit but no explicit anti-fat bias (p < 0.001). Furthermore, only implicit anti-fat bias was found to be a significant predictor of behavioral intentions (p < 0.05), after accounting for body mass index, and sociodemographic variables. In conclusion, the present study revealed that implicit anti-fat bias is present among Asian females and is a valid predictor of weight-related behavioral intentions. However, anti-fat bias is often not expressed explicitly, possibly influenced by collectivistic beliefs. More studies are needed to better understand similarities and differences between Asian and Western populations regarding attitudes toward overweight and obese individuals.

Attitudes and Beliefs of Nonspecialist and Specialist Trainee Health and Physical Education Teachers Toward Obese Children: Evidence for "Anti-Fat" Bias.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to assess the beliefs and attitudes of preservice health and physical education (HPE) specialist and nonspecialist schoolteachers toward obese children. METHODS: A total of 177 nonspecialist and 62 HPE specialist trainee teachers completed a series of pen-and-paper validated measures of attitudes and beliefs toward obese children. RESULTS: Both groups of preservice teachers reported strong implicit and moderate explicit anti-fat bias. Enrollment in the HPE specialist degree was found to be a significant predictor of both implicit bad/good anti-fat bias (ß = 3.97, p = .002) and implicit bias on the stupid/smart scale (ß = 2.983, p = .016) of the IAT. Beliefs that obese children were less healthy, more self-conscious, and less satisfied with themselves were strongly endorsed by the majority of participants. HPE specialists were found to have significantly lower expectations for obese children in regard to "reasoning" (mean difference = 0.21, p = .0107) and "cooperation" skills (mean difference = 0.25, p = .0354) compared to nonspecialist trainees. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to document the strong anti-fat bias of both preservice nonspecialist and HPE specialist teachers. It is also the first to find that preservice HPE specialist teachers have stronger anti-fat biases and differential expectations regarding particular abilities of obese children, compared to nonspecialists.

The implicit nature of the anti-fat bias.

The stigmatization and discrimination of obese persons is pervasive in almost any domain of living. At the explicit level, obese people are associated with a wide range of negative characteristics. Furthermore, research with the implicit association test revealed the implicit nature of the anti-fat bias. Building upon these findings, the present study used event-related brain potential recordings in order to assess key features of implicit processes. Participants viewed a series of schematic portrayals of anorexic, medium, and obese body shapes and tools. In a passive viewing condition, participants were asked to simply look at the stimuli and, in a distraction condition, participants were asked to detect a specific tool. Viewing obese body images, as compared to medium or anorexic body images, elicited a positive potential shift over fronto-central sites and a relative negative potential over occipito-temporal regions in a time window from ∼190 to 250 ms. This evaluative brain response to obese body images was similarly pronounced while participants performed a distraction task. Thus, the findings suggest that the anti-fat bias may occur spontaneously, unintentionally, and independent of explicit processing goals. A troublesome picture is emerging in Western cultures suggesting that obese-ism may appear to be as inevitable as a reflex.