No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
A review on coping mechanisms against obesity bias in physical activity/education settings
Abstract
Obesity bias such as teasing or weight criticism during physical activity can lead to psychological or emotional damage for overweight or obese individuals. The literature indicates that the adverse effects of stigmatization on overweight or obese individuals can be mediated by coping mechanisms. However, little is known about how overweight or obese children and adolescents cope with weight stigma in physical activity/education settings. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of coping mechanisms through reviewing work on weight stigma in psychology literature and discusses the future research directions. The most promising areas for future research include conducting an in-depth qualitative exploration of overweight or obese individuals' coping mechanisms against obesity bias and studying potential individual and situational factors as moderating variables in physical activity/education settings.
... The lack of perceived social support, by overweight and obese people, triggers the appearance of avoidant and passive coping strategies [10]. Blaming themselves, wishful thinking or social withdrawal are common styles to cope with daily problems and stressful situations instead of proactive or problem-solved strategies such as physical activity or seeking social support [23,24]. Previous research suggests that the use of passive coping strategies could anticipate the appearance of emotional eating, especially in young population [10,17,25]. ...
... In addition, a higher score of cognitive restructuration, an active coping strategy, has been reported by the NW group. These results are supported by past research findings [19,23,24], OW people tend to present passive coping strategies to deal with daily stressful situations [10,19,23,24] and a society critical of being obese [11,13,21]. The use of food as a resource to face negative feelings, like anxiety or stress, use to be present in people with OW [11,[17][18][19][20][21]. ...
... In addition, a higher score of cognitive restructuration, an active coping strategy, has been reported by the NW group. These results are supported by past research findings [19,23,24], OW people tend to present passive coping strategies to deal with daily stressful situations [10,19,23,24] and a society critical of being obese [11,13,21]. The use of food as a resource to face negative feelings, like anxiety or stress, use to be present in people with OW [11,[17][18][19][20][21]. ...
Purpose
Obese and overweight people deal with more daily problems and stressful situations than normal-weight individuals, for example, discrimination and bias. The aims of the present study were twofold: to identify differences between overweight and normal-weight people in coping strategies and eating behaviors, and to examine the relationship between coping strategies, eating behaviors and BMI.
Methods
Sample of the present study consisted of 473 participants, 76.7% women (mean age = 32.7; SD = 11.4). Participants completed an ad hoc sociodemographic data questionnaire, the Coping Strategies Inventory, and the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Welch’s t test and X² comparison analysis were used to identify differences in coping strategies and eating behaviors, according two BMI groups, normal weight and overweight. To analyze the relationship between coping strategies, eating behaviors and BMI, a structural equation modeling was conducted.
Results
Overweight participants score significantly higher in passive coping strategies such as self-criticism, wishful thinking and social withdrawal, and unhealthy eating behaviors such as emotional eating and restrained eating. Structural equation modeling included these variables, coping strategies are more likely to conduct to unhealthy eating behaviors and these are more likely to promote and maintain a high BMI. The model showed an adequate data fit.
Conclusions
This research proposes a relationship between the variables analyzed. It has been proved that passive coping strategies predict a high BMI via unhealthy eating behaviors, especially emotional eating. These results are promising to improve the current prevention obesity programs and weight control treatments.
Level of evidence
Level III, case–control analytic study.
... Students who are overweight and obese publicly display their body sizes and physical capabilities and many opportunities exist for social comparison. Although weight teasing has been reported in PE settings (Bauer et al., 2004;Curtis, 2008;Fox & Edmunds, 2000;Li & Rukavina, in press), no studies have investigated how students perceived to be overweight or obese cope with teasing in a physical activity/education context (Li & Rukavina, 2009). An understanding of the underlying coping mechanisms can provide a foundation for the development of interventions to improve the capability of students perceived to be overweight or obese to cope with weight-related teasing. ...
... Avoidance and psychological disengagement is a mechanism that individuals perceived to be overweight or obese can use to cope with weight-related teasing (For a review, please see Li & Rukavina, 2009;Puhl & Brownell, 2003). They can avoid or walk away from a situation, ignore the situation with no response, or psychologically disengage themselves from this stressful event. ...
... Self-protection has been used as a mechanism for individuals perceived to be overweight or obese to cope against weight-related teasing (For a review, please see Li & Rukavina, 2009;Puhl & Brownell, 2003). Self-protective strategies are used to protect and raise their self esteem. ...
The purpose of this study was to examine coping against weight-related teasing among adolescents perceived to be overweight or obese in urban physical education. Forty-seven students perceived to be overweight or obese from a large urban school district were interviewed. Trustworthiness of data analysis was established by using a member-checking procedure, focus group interview, and peer debriefing throughout the research process. The results indicated that adolescents perceived to be overweight or obese used self-protection, compensation, confrontation, seeking social support, avoidance/psychological disengagement, losing weight and stress reduction strategies to cope against weight-related teasing. Adolescents used multiple strategies under different mechanisms to cope, and the strategies they chose were dependent on the situation.
... 22 Personal attribution (admitting that their weight condition is unacceptable but attributing their weight status to external causes, such as genetics or other uncontrollable events) and avoidance/disengagement (avoiding or walking away from a situation, ignoring, nonresponse) have been listed as some important coping mechanisms of overweight/obese individuals. 23 These psychological mechanisms may, in turn, paradoxically constitute an obstacle to motivation and to take action in response to health communication. 24 However, negative body image perception could sometimes serve a functional role in motivating overweight youth toward healthy eating and physical activities. ...
... These observations are consistent with the findings of Fagan and colleagues (2008), 29 who reported that the point prevalence of accurate perception, intention, and action for adopting regular physical activity were all less in the overweight/obese groups. Stating the coping mechanisms of obese individuals, Li & Rukavina (2009) 23 state that overweight or obese individuals may try to lose weight to escape the stigmatized group if they perceive their weight status is under their personal control. A study among Australian adolescents found that if a young person expressed a motivation to be active, he/ she was active and expressed a positive view of being of healthy weight. ...
... These observations are consistent with the findings of Fagan and colleagues (2008), 29 who reported that the point prevalence of accurate perception, intention, and action for adopting regular physical activity were all less in the overweight/obese groups. Stating the coping mechanisms of obese individuals, Li & Rukavina (2009) 23 state that overweight or obese individuals may try to lose weight to escape the stigmatized group if they perceive their weight status is under their personal control. A study among Australian adolescents found that if a young person expressed a motivation to be active, he/ she was active and expressed a positive view of being of healthy weight. ...
To assess the differences in risk perceptions of overweight/obese and normal-weight adolescents about obesity and associated risk factors.
Qualitative study using focus group discussions (FGDs).
Five randomly selected schools from the South Indian city of Hyderabad.
Seventy-nine adolescents (ages 11-14 years) participated in 10 FGDs (5 each with overweight/obese and normal-weight groups).
Whether obesity-related risk perceptions differ with actual weight status or not.
FGDs were recorded, transcribed, and manually coded for thematic analysis. Results were presented according to 6 themes. At each stage of coding and analysis, reports were read independently by 2-3 researchers and the inter-coder reliability was high (ratio of number of agreements against the sum of agreements plus disagreements was over 90%).
Adolescents across the groups had limited understanding of nutrition during adolescence as well as causes and consequences of obesity. The optimistic bias that they were less vulnerable compared to others to the risks of obesity was evident from perceptions of overweight groups. While overweight adolescents argued that obesity was hereditary, the normal-weight participants perceived "faulty food habits" and laziness as the reasons. Adolescents across the groups considered fruits and vegetables as healthy foods.
There were clear differences in perceptions of adolescents of different weight status. Employing the risk perception analysis framework, this study identified the following adolescent traits: responsive, avoidance, and indifference, which may be useful for developing nutrition communication programs.
Copyright © 2015 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
... Students who are overweight and obese publicly display their body sizes and physical capabilities and many opportunities exist for social comparison. Although weight teasing has been reported in PE settings (Bauer et al., 2004;Curtis, 2008;Fox & Edmunds, 2000;Li & Rukavina, in press), no studies have investigated how students perceived to be overweight or obese cope with teasing in a physical activity/education context (Li & Rukavina, 2009). An understanding of the underlying coping mechanisms can provide a foundation for the development of interventions to improve the capability of students perceived to be overweight or obese to cope with weight-related teasing. ...
... Avoidance and psychological disengagement is a mechanism that individuals perceived to be overweight or obese can use to cope with weight-related teasing (For a review, please see Li & Rukavina, 2009;Puhl & Brownell, 2003). They can avoid or walk away from a situation, ignore the situation with no response, or psychologically disengage themselves from this stressful event. ...
... Self-protection has been used as a mechanism for individuals perceived to be overweight or obese to cope against weight-related teasing (For a review, please see Li & Rukavina, 2009;Puhl & Brownell, 2003). Self-protective strategies are used to protect and raise their self esteem. ...
The purpose of this study was to examine coping against weight-related teasing among adolescents perceived to be overweight or obese in urban physical education. Forty-seven students perceived to be overweight or obese from a large urban school district were interviewed. Trustworthiness of data analysis was established by using a member-checking procedure, focus group interview, and peer debriefing throughout the research process. The results indicated that adolescents perceived to be overweight or obese used self-protection, compensation, confrontation, seeking social support, avoidance/psychological disengagement, losing weight and stress reduction strategies to cope against weight-related teasing. Adolescents used multiple strategies under different mechanisms to cope, and the strategies they chose were dependent on the situation.
... Therefore, the prevalence of pre-obesity and obesity recorded in this study does not differ much from that studied at the national level, with a variance of only 2.9%. It has been documented that pre-obese and obese children engage less in PA [160], contributing to negative outcomes in physical fitness [161], health [162] and motor skills [101,102] and can lead to impaired cognitive development [82]. Furthermore, parents and educators tend to be less likely to encourage obese children to practice PA based on perceptions that children with this typology will have limited physical abilities, which may contribute to triggering a cycle of PA avoidance [160]. ...
... It has been documented that pre-obese and obese children engage less in PA [160], contributing to negative outcomes in physical fitness [161], health [162] and motor skills [101,102] and can lead to impaired cognitive development [82]. Furthermore, parents and educators tend to be less likely to encourage obese children to practice PA based on perceptions that children with this typology will have limited physical abilities, which may contribute to triggering a cycle of PA avoidance [160]. As a response to these consequences, obesity prevention should be a priority in the preschool years, as these are essential for establishing an intervention on eating behavior and PA [163][164][165]. ...
There is evidence of a relationship between motor and cognitive development. The literature has shown that of all the motor skills, fine motor skills are those that contribute most to mathematical performance in preschool children. As this is a sensitive period in the development of motor skills, low levels of physical activity in this period can compromise their development and contribute to weight gain and obesity. The aim of this study was therefore to analyze the relationship between mathematical and motor skills, physical activity levels, and obesity. The sample consisted of 62 preschool children (32 males) with an average age of 4.63 ± 0.81. The Weschler preschool and primary scale of intelligence—revised arithmetic test was used to assess mathematical skills. The tests to assess fine motor skills were the “Adapted Threading Beads Test” and the “Adapted Visuomotor Integration Test”. The movement assessment battery for children-2, band 1, “Aiming & Catching”, and “Balance” tests were used to assess gross motor skills. Levels of physical activity were assessed using the “Preschool-age physical activity questionnaire” and obesity using the body mass index. The results indicated that only the fine motor skills of visuomotor integration were included in the multiple linear regression model (F < 0.001; r = 0.464; R2 = 0.215; p < 0.001), with the exclusion of gross motor skills, physical activity levels, and obesity levels. Thus, it was concluded that mathematical skills were only directly and significantly influenced by visuomotor integration. However, visuomotor integration was positively and significantly associated with gross motor skills (r = 0.269; p < 0.05) and not with levels of physical activity and obesity. Thus, gross motor skills could contribute to improving visuomotor integration directly and consequently mathematical skills indirectly. The results of this study suggest that the implementation of structured physical activity programs can contribute to mathematical performance.
... In our review, Guided Self-Help Webbased and Self-Help are the second and the third interventions in the ranking. These kinds of programs promote the development of active coping strategies, and the feeling of being responsible for the achievements [54,55]. Moreover, these GSH-W and SH interventions might be helpful for people with obesity to avoid discriminatory behaviors of health care professionals [56]. ...
... The following characteristics were identified as relevant in successful web-based interventions for people with obesity: the presence of a health care professional providing frequent feedback, the development of selfregulation skills or the election of self-help programs to avoid judgmental environments [12,13,23,[54][55][56]. For those reasons, it seems that MC-W group is the most controversial treatment option and, it is more difficult to make a statement of its effectiveness. ...
Background:
Web-based delivered interventions have become an innovative option to treat health problems, like obesity. The aim of this systematic review and network meta-analysis was to analyze the effectiveness of web-based behavioral treatments for adults with overweight and obesity. Web-based interventions and comparison interventions (traditional weight control programs) were classified according to the following feedback characteristics: frequency, personalization, and provider (human versus machine).
Method:
From the initial 1789 studies, 15 were included in this review. A network meta-analysis was conducted to analyze the efficacy of web-based programs with traditional interventions, considering direct and indirect comparisons. The main outcome was the weight loss mean difference (kg) between baseline and post-treatment. Heterogeneity and consistency assumptions were validated to conduct the network meta-analysis.
Results:
Network meta-analysis showed comparisons between different treatment options. The main results were that Intensive Contact Web-based programs were more effective than wait-list (Mean Difference - 1.86 kg; 95% Confidence Interval: - 3.61, - 0.12). Moreover, Intensive Contact Web-based programs were more effective than the other web-based options and self-help traditional interventions. However, the only significant comparison was Intensive Contact Web-based programs versus Guided Self-Help Web-based programs (Mean Difference - 4.31 kg; 95% Confidence Interval: - 5,22, - 3,41). Intensive Contact Web-based programs were the most effective treatment option according the obtained results, achieving the first place in the ranking provided by the network meta-analysis with 98.5% of probabilities.
Conclusions:
Intensive Contact Web-based interventions have obtained the first position in the ranking, proving the relevance of frequent, personalized, and professional feedback and their association with a better prognosis for people with overweight and obesity. These results provide relevant information to design more effective treatments for people with overweight and obesity, in a new format especially appropriate for the current situation.
... 1,2 This is a chronic stressor with potential long-lasting psychological consequences, including low selfesteem and depression. [3][4][5][6][7] However, their ability to adaptively cope with weight-based victimization can have an important impact on their mental health. 8 Coping is defined as "cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person" and is an important mediator between negative life events and psychological well-being. ...
... 19 However, there is scarce literature focusing on the growing population of adolescents with severe obesity. 6 There is even more limited qualitative research that provide narrative into how these adolescents respond to and cope with physical, verbal and social weight-based victimization. Furthermore, there is poor understanding of the importance of teaching effective coping strategies when counselling these treatment-seeking adolescents. ...
Adolescents with severe obesity are subject to a high prevalence of weight‐based victimization that may lead to pervasive mental health symptoms. However, different coping strategies could potentially modulate these psychological consequences. This study aims to explore how treatment‐seeking adolescents with severe obesity cope with weight‐based victimization. This was a qualitative research study using an interpretive phenomenological analytic approach. One‐on‐one semi structured interviews were completed with 19 adolescents (63% female) enrolled in a weight management program. The interviews were transcribed and sequentially analysed until data saturation was attained. The majority of participants (89.5%) described being a victim of weight‐based victimization and highlighted a significant emotional toll. Two key themes were identified that captured the various coping strategies used by participants. Over half (52.9%) described approach coping strategies where they acted on the source to invoke change by standing up for themselves, helping others in similar situations or becoming a bully themselves. Whilst the majority (94.1%) used avoidant coping strategies such as feigning a strong exterior façade, denial, isolation and self‐harm. Nearly half (47.1%) used both strategies. Treatment‐seeking adolescents with severe obesity commonly use avoidant coping strategies to deal with weight‐based victimization. These strategies are associated with negative mental health outcomes and should be evaluated when counselling adolescents with obesity who have experienced weight‐based victimization.
... Experiences of peer victimization are often reported to have a negative impact on girls' PA involvement Stearns et al., 2017). Not surprisingly then, this troubling relationship between peer difficulties and PA, specifically in girls, has been identified as a concern (Li & Rukavina, 2009;Salvy et al., 2012). The following reported experiences by inactive girls of victimization at school between late childhood until early adolescence are consistent with the findings of previous research: I've never practiced any kind of sport. ...
... Now it's different, sometimes I run alone in the park but still do capoeira with friends. (Nelson, Active) Overall, whilst there is evidence to support the negative influence that peer victimization can have on adolescents' PA (Fitzgerald et al., 2012;Li & Rukavina, 2009;Stearns et al., 2017) it is encouraging to see that some adolescents in this study refuted this. Their ability and confidence to socialize from an early stage of development and to maintain their childhood friends until late adolescence seemed to give them the resilience for retaining their activity over time. ...
Purpose: Understanding friends influences on adolescents’ PA, and how these change over time, is fundamental to developing interventions for promoting active lifestyles yet the latter in particular remains unexplored. This study explored the experiences and perspectives of physically active and inactive adolescents regarding the influence of their friends on their PA throughout childhood and adolescence. Methods: Following completion of a questionnaire, 16 adolescents, 8 boys (4 physically inactive, 4 active) and 8 girls (4 inactive, 4 active), aged 17±1.0 years, were selected from two schools. A qualitative design was adopted whereby each adolescent was interviewed individually. Using the constant comparative method, the interviews were inductively and thematically analysed. Results: Four main themes were identified: I) PA journeys; II) Friends provide PA benefits); III) Friends matter in PA, but change; IV) Against all odds – rising above others. Compared to the inactive, active adolescents perceived that their friends were fundamental to them becoming and remaining active, specifically in terms of: offering support to internalize an active sense of belonging in different contexts when family support diminished; providing opportunities to be active at key transition points; and helping them to overcome peer victimization. Conclusion: This study confirms the important role of friends in adolescents’ PA, and provides new evidence concerning the changing patterns and influence of friends from childhood to late adolescence. Recommendations are made relating to the role of friends in youth PA with a view to improving the effectiveness of approaches to promoting active lifestyles.
Keywords: exercise; friendship; youth; qualitative research.
... Lastly, coping mechanisms to deal with AC may cushion any negative effects on PA behaviour. Coping mechanisms such as self-acceptance, self-protection by attributing negative outcomes to other's prejudiced attitudes, or confronting the source of commentary may have been used to deal with negative emotions (Li & Rukavina, 2008). ...
... Two coping mechanisms that may directly apply to this sample of women, based on their reported PA rates, are compensation tactics to alter negative biases or stereotypes and weight loss. As our PPOW group reported higher PA levels than typically seen within an overweight population, this group may have tried to compensate for negative stereotypes and comments received in the past by over exaggerating actual PA levels in attempt to compensate for past negative evaluations (Li & Rukavina, 2008). This would be consistent with findings that being described as an exerciser can buffer the negative stereotypes associated with being overweight (Martin Ginis & Leary, 2006). ...
When looked at individually, overweight status and a higher frequency of negative appearance commentary (AC) are associated with lower physical activity (PA) levels. However, the combined effect has yet to be examined. The purpose of this study was to examine if the frequency of AC moderated the relationship between weight status and PA in college-aged females. No significant differences in PA levels (F(1,99)=2.41, p=.12) were found between the Never Overweight and Previously/Presently Overweight groups. Significant correlations existed for both negative AC (r=-.30, p=.00) and positive AC (r=.20, p=.05) with PA participation. AC did not significantly moderate the relationship between weight status and PA (F(2,95)=.65, p=.52, R 2 adjusted=.13) as the interaction term did not account for any additional increase in variance (∆R 2 =.01). Overall, AC frequency does not moderate the relationship between weight status and PA; other predictor variables should be explored.
... Obese students are stigmatized by their teachers, peers, and even family members, which can have detrimental physiological and psychological consequences (Stojadinovic et al., 2018). They are usually thought of as unmotivated, physically unattractive, stupid, or lacking willpower and discipline with regard to their body weight (Li and Rukavina, 2009). Studies show that obese students who are teased during physical activities prefer isolated, sedentary activities (Hayden-Wade et al., 2005), enjoy sports less, and engage in less physical activity than their peers (Storch et al., 2007). ...
Background
This is a cross-sectional in design. It involves the mediating effects of basic psychological need satisfaction in relation to the moderating effects of teacher autonomy support regarding weight self-stigma's effect on engagement among obese students in physical education classes.
Methods
This study includes 165 Chinese high school obese students [mean age, 16.84 (±0.147) years], comprising 93 males (56.63%) and 72 females (43.63%), with a mean body mass index (BMI) of 30.453 (SD = 2.426). Participants completed the weight self-stigma questionnaire, basic psychological need satisfaction questionnaire, teacher autonomy support questionnaire, and student engagement questionnaire.
Results
Weight self-stigma and engagement among obese students were mediated by basic psychological need satisfaction. Moreover, the mediated effect of basic psychological need satisfaction was moderated by teacher autonomy support.
Conclusion
Weight self-stigma and basic psychological need satisfaction are the antecedents influencing the engagement of obese students. Notably, weight self-stigma not only directly blocks the engagement of obese students but also their engagement by hindering the acquisition of basic psychological need satisfaction. Teacher autonomy support can significantly reduce the negative impact of weight self-stigma on basic psychological need satisfaction and significantly promote engagement. Therefore, by promoting their physical education engagement, physical education teachers should strengthen the application of their supportive autonomous teaching strategies to help obese students meet their basic psychological needs.
... When members of society deliberately express their negative attitudes such as taunting or stigmatizing overweight and obese individuals, this means they show explicit prejudices (18,19). While most people do not accept that they consciously have anti-fat prejudices, new studies on anti-fat prejudice show that individuals who are far from the socially desirable and/or exhibit implicit attitudes automatically develop negative attitudes and behaviors against obese individuals (13,20,21). ...
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the obesity related prejudices and negative
attitudes of university students who study in health and non-health fields. Subjective and Methods: This is a
descriptive study conducted to determine the obesity prejudice levels of students studying in health and social
fields. A total of 732 students (577 females, 155 males) of different faculties of a university participated in
the study voluntarily. The Prejudice was measured with Obesity Prejudice Scale (OPS). Analysis of Variance
and Covariance were used to investigate relationships between of OPS scores and factors. Results: A total of
732 students, 577 (78.8%) females and 155 (21.2%) males, participated in this study, which was conducted
to determine obesity prejudices of university students. According to their mean OPS scores, 18.4% of the
students were found to be unprejudiced, 55.1% prone to be prejudiced, and 26.5% prejudiced. The intragroup
comparisons of mean OPS scores of health and social field students indicated that the differences between
the prejudiced and the unprejudiced were statistically highly significant (p<0.0001). Conclusions: In order to
prevent the development of internalized obesity prejudices emerging as a result of prejudices against obese
individuals in the society and their stigmatization, this problem must be solved at an early age, especially
during university education. It is necessary that state policies should be established to monitor the attitudes
of individuals towards obesity, people should be educated and supervised on this subject, and that further
research representing the society on this topic should be conducted.
... The motor delays often affect children self-esteem (Cairney, Hay, Faught, Flouris, & Klentrou, 2007;Nobre & Valentini, 2019), peer acceptance (Ekornås, Lundervold, Tjus, & Heimann, 2010), perception of the motor (Brauner, Valentini, & Souza, 2017;Robinson, Rudisill, & Goodway, 2009) and cognitive (Lopes, Lopes, Santos, & Pereira, 2011;Castetbon & Andreyeva, 2012;Nobre, Valentini, & Nobre, 2018) competences. Motor delays can also result in a child's difficulties in engaging in regular physical activity (Green et al., 2011;Li & Rukavina, 2009;Logan, Webster, Getchell, Pfeiffer, & Robinson, 2015;Lopes et al., 2011;Wagner et al., 2011). ...
Background
The Peabody Developmental Motor Scales - Second Edition (PDMS-2) has been used by health and educational professionals to assess the gross and fine motor skills of children with typical development, motor and/or cognitive delays, and disabilities.
Aim
Investigate the validity and reliability of PDMS-2 for use in Brazil.
Methods
For content validity, 13 professionals participated in the study. For construct validity, a sample of 637 children from birth until 71 months (0–23 months: n = 399; 24–71 months: n = 238) was assessed with the PDMS-2.
Results
The PDMS-2 administered to the Brazilian population has psychometric characteristics equivalent to the original version.
Conclusion
PDMS-2 is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating Brazilian children's motor development and providing appropriate support for clinical and educational intervention plans and follow-ups.
... In particular, studies related to bariatric surgery are a powerful source of data because these types of surgery involve altering the stomach, intestines, or both to induce weight loss [2][3][4][5][6][7]. In addition, a large number of studies of obesity are associated with cardiovascular diseases [8][9][10][11], diabetes and metabolic syndrome [12][13][14]; many studies are in the field of diets, psychology and neurology [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. ...
Obesity is associated with alterations in the composition and amounts of lipids. Lipids have over 1.7 million representatives. Most lipid groups differ in composition, properties and chemical structure. These small molecules control various metabolic pathways, determine the metabolism of other compounds and are substrates for the syntheses of different derivatives. Recently, lipidomics has become an important branch of medical/clinical sciences similar to proteomics and genomics. Due to the much higher lipid accumulation in obese patients and many alterations in the compositions of various groups of lipids, the methods used for sample preparations for lipidomic studies of samples from obese subjects sometimes have to be modified. Appropriate sample preparation methods allow for the identification of a wide range of analytes by advanced analytical methods, including mass spectrometry. This is especially the case in studies with obese subjects, as the amounts of some lipids are much higher, others are present in trace amounts, and obese subjects have some specific alterations of the lipid profile. As a result, it is best to use a method previously tested on samples from obese subjects. However, most of these methods can be also used in healthy, nonobese subjects or patients with other dyslipidemias. This review is an overview of sample preparation methods for analysis as one of the major critical steps in the overall analytical procedure.
... Perhaps over time, children or mothers develop strategies to cope with any difficulties associated with having a higher BMI or parenting a child with a higher BMI. 41 Alternatively, perceived stress related to higher BMI may become more salient during later adolescence. 42 Further, the direct effects of having a child with overweight/obesity or the indirect effects of parenting a child with overweight/obesity may be more Alternative measures of body fat (eg, dual energy x-ray absorptiometry) were considered in this study but ultimately ruled out due to feasibility and cost issues. ...
Background
Although exposure to stress is common among children and their parents, longitudinal research on the effects of perceived stress on child obesity risk is lacking. This study examined the 3‐year longitudinal associations of children and mothers' perceived stress with children's body mass index (BMI).
Methods
A sample of 199 mothers and their children (8‐12 years at baseline, 56% Hispanic) completed six semi‐annual assessments across 3 years with questionnaire‐based self‐report measures of perceived stress and measured height/weight. Parallel process latent growth curve modelling specified regressions of latent intercept and slope of children's BMI on latent intercepts and slopes for mothers' and children's perceived stress.
Results
Greater child self‐reported perceived stress at baseline predicted greater increase in children's BMI across the six assessments whereas mother self‐reported perceived stress at baseline was unrelated to change in child BMI. Baseline child BMI was unrelated to change in children or mothers' perceived stress across the six assessment waves.
Conclusion
Children's own perceptions of stress may play a larger contributing role in BMI progression during middle childhood than their mother's perceived stress levels. These findings underscore the importance of focusing on children's stress‐coping strategies for promoting a healthy weight.
... Others have similarly suggested that games and organized sports, with their emphasis on physical performance, induce anxiety for those in larger bodies (Garrett, 2004). Not surprisingly, then, larger-bodied persons are less likely to enjoy or participate in sport (Butte, Puyau, Adolph, Vohra, & Zakeri, 2007;Li & Rukavina, 2009) and to view sport as only accessible to thin-bodied, elite athletes (MacLean et al., 2009). Thus, in examining multiple settings, the current study hypothesized that individuals in larger bodies would feel less likely to fit in (i.e., have lower fit perceptions) and be less likely to join a sport league than a fitness center (H1a-b, H3a-b), irrespective of the marketing messages presented. ...
Objective: Individuals in larger bodies remain an underserved population in sport and physical activity. Larger-bodied individuals often avoid physical activity spaces altogether due to their perceived exclusivity. Drawing on signaling theory, the current study argues that inclusive marketing messages in advertisements, including health-focused language and the presence of larger-bodied models may encourage participation for these individuals. Through two experiments (N = 266), manipulating the language and images used in fitness club and sport advertisements, the current study explores the effects of inclusive messages on perceptions of fit and join intentions. Results indicate that, regardless of messaging, those in larger bodies are more likely to engage a fitness center than soccer league. Advertisements featuring healthfocused language were related to higher fit perceptions. Finally, advertisements featuring larger models were related to higher intentions to join. It is suggested that organizations seeking to engage this population increase their use of diversity-related signals in marketing.
... Inhibiting effect of obesity on physical development of the children was one of the possible mechanisms proposed to be influencing psychomotor skills and cognitive abilities. Overweight and obese children unable to successfully engage in sports challenges and may avoid participating in physical activities affecting the overall learning processes (Li and Rukavina, 2009;Datar et al., 2004). The degree of deficit in cognition and psychomotor skills can be assessed by a battery of cognition and psychomotor skill tests (Sasikala et al., 2017). ...
... The purpose of this systematic review was to synthesize the available evidence on the prevalence of weight bias and its impact on the educational experiences and the health of students in K-12 and postsecondary settings. While similar previous reviews of weight bias literature have been conducted, these reviews have focused on the broad nature of weight bias experienced by children and youth, not limited to an educational setting [17,18], how children and youth cope with weight bias in physical education settings specifically [19], and associations between childhood obesity and academic achievement [20]. The current review adds to this literature by providing a review of original research specific to the occurrence of weight bias in educational settings, but broadens the review to all educationally based research, rather than research conducted solely within physical education. ...
Purpose
To conduct a systematic literature review of empirical peer-reviewed published studies on the prevalence of weight bias among students, pre-service, and in-service teachers and its impact on the educational experiences and health of students from kindergarten to postsecondary settings.
Methods
Keywords were searched on three main concepts, (i) weight bias/stigma, (ii) obesity/overweight, and (iii) education, within eight databases. Our search yielded 8323 individual records, of which 45 studies satisfied our inclusion criteria.
Results
Most studies were conducted in K-12 school settings (n = 41), were quantitative in design (n = 37), and used student samples (n = 18). Weight bias is prevalent in educational settings, among peers at school as well as pre-service and in-service teachers, and negatively impacts students’ health and educational experiences.
Conclusion
These results highlighted the impact of weight bias in creating inequity for students with obesity as well as several underexamined areas, such as weight bias in postsecondary settings and attitudes among teachers and pre-service teachers. Innovative strategies to address weight bias in educational settings are needed.
... Inhibiting effect of obesity on physical development of the children was one of the possible mechanisms proposed to be influencing psychomotor skills and cognitive abilities. Overweight and obese children unable to successfully engage in sports challenges and may avoid participating in physical activities affecting the overall learning processes (Li and Rukavina, 2009;Datar et al., 2004). The degree of deficit in cognition and psychomotor skills can be assessed by a battery of cognition and psychomotor skill tests (Sasikala et al., 2017). ...
Introduction
Alcohol abuse constitutes a worldwide social and health problem which is associated with a variety of neurocognitive changes. The precise neurophysiological basis of these changes is not yet fully understood. In chronic alcoholics specific deficits are often observed in their perceptual capabilities, motor control, problem solving abilities and memory function. This study was aimed to compare the critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF) and finger tapping test to diagnose neurocognitive function loss in chronic alcoholics.
Methodology
A total of 91 subjects, 48 chronic alcoholic subjects and 43 non alcoholic subjects aged between 25 to 50 years were included in this study. All participants underwent the CFF test using Nethra CFFF device (Mavom labs pvt.ltd) built on python free source software and finger tapping test by counting device through Audacity (Cross-Platform Sound Editor) to record inter twitch interval. The testing procedures were repeated three times to ensure that the subject was sufficiently familiar with it before CFF & finger tapping test measurements were initiated.
Results
The present data reports CFFF and inter twitch interval in chronic alcoholics and healthy age matched controls (non alcoholics). The Mean CFFF in chronic alcoholics is 35.58±0.52 Hz which is significantly lesser than non-alcoholics i.e, 39.46 ± 0.39 Hz (P value<0.001). Inter twitch interval (ITI) determined from finger tapping test in both groups. The mean ITI in chronic alcoholics is 311±7.73 ms, which is also significantly slower than control group 244 ± 5.07 ms (P value<0.001).
Conclusion
The results of the current study conclude that, chronic alcoholism decreases the temporal cognition and fine motor skills.
... The notion of coping with stress refers to the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping by R. Lazarus and S. Folkman [24]. This theory looks at the interaction between a person and their environment. ...
... Larger-bodied individuals more frequently endure both direct and indirect forms of felt (experienced) weight stigma in many common environments, including work, school, medical facilities, and government centers [10]. Importantly, people with severe obesity (BMI ≥ 35) are more likely than those of normal weight to internalize the weight-related stigma expressed by others (i.e., to selfstigmatize) over their life course [10,11]. Internalized weight stigma (sometimes termed self-stigma or selfdirected stigma), is the extent to which a person reports feeling of low social value due to his or her current or former weight status. ...
Background
People living with severe obesity report high levels of weight-related stigma. Theoretically, this stigma undermines weight loss efforts. The objective of this study is to test one proposed mechanism to explain why weight loss is so difficult once an individual becomes obese: that weight-related stigma inhibits physical activity via demotivation to exercise.
Methods
The study focused on individuals who had bariatric surgery within the past 5 years (N = 298) and who report a post-surgical body mass index (BMI) ranging from 16 to 70. Exercise avoidance motivation (EAM) and physical activity (PA) were modeled as latent variables using structural equation modeling. Two measures of weight stigma, the Stigmatizing Situations Inventory (SSI) and the Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS) were modified for people with a long history of extreme obesity for use as observed predictors.
Results
Exercise avoidance motivation (EAM) significantly mediated the association between both experienced (SSI) and internalized (WBIS) weight stigma and physical activity (PA) in this population.
Conclusion
Exercise avoidance motivation, influenced by weight stigma, may be a significant factor explaining the positive relationship between higher body weights with lower levels of physical activity.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s40608-018-0195-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
... Babooram and others, 2011;Fitzgerald and others, 2013;Rees and others, 2014). Some studies have examined the experiences of overweight and obese young people who are living with overweight and discriminatory practices (Eriksen and Manke, 2011;Li and Rukavina, 2009;Wills and others, 2006). However, there are a few studies that have explicitly examined children's discourses of responsibility for childhood obesity construed as a public health issue -in terms of both causal and prospective responsibility for the future health of the collectiveoften discussed as a societal responsibility to achieve better health (Feiring, 2008). ...
The dominant approaches to public health policy on childhood obesity are based on the neoliberal emphasis of personal choice and individual responsibility. We study adolescents’ (N = 81) beliefs about responsibility for childhood obesity as a public health issue, through an innovative participatory method, PlayDecide, organised in two countries: the UK and Spain. There is no evidence of a blanket rejection of individual responsibility, rather, a call for renegotiation of the values that inform adolescents’ food choices. The findings suggest the need to broaden the framing of obesity-related policy to go beyond the nutritional paradigm and include other values that signal health.
... Consequentemente estas crianças podem apresentar resistência em participar de atividades físicas e até resistência em situações de aprendizagem. Além disso, pais, professores e/ou cuidadores podem ser menos propensos a incentivar crianças obesas a se envolverem em atividade física, por acreditarem nas possíveis habilidades físicas limitadas (Li & Rukavina, 2009). ...
The objective of this study was to investigate the intervention impact in the performance of overweight (n=6) and obesity (n=14) children in manual control and dexterity, body coordination, strength and agility, locomotor and object control skills and balance. The Body Mass Index was used to investigate nutrition status classified according to Center for Disease Control, Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2, Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 e Test of Gross Motor Development-2 to investigated motor performance. Dependent and independent t-tests and effect size were conducted. The results showed that:
(1) significant changes for intervention group (IG) from pre- to post-intervention in balance (p=.042), locomotor (p=.004) object control (p=.001) skills; (2) declines in the control group (CG) for manual (p=.021) and body (p=.044) coordination, and strength and agility (p=.002); (3) no changes were observed from pre- to post-intervention in control and manual dexterity, and ball skills (p.05); (4) in the pre-intervention children in the CG showed superior performance compared to the children in the IG in body coordination (p=.018), in the post-intervention the IG achieve similar performance to the CG (p=.968); and, (5) for the other comparisons significant differences between groups were not found (p.05). The motor intervention focused to the needs of children, coupled with the opportunity to practice and motivation strategies promote benefits in motor ability of children overweight.
Keywords: Overweight, Child, Motor skills, intervention studies
... Una de las variables funcionalmente relacionadas con el éxito potencial del tratamiento es la manera en la que el paciente afronta la condición de la obesidad, incluyendo necesidades, limitaciones y cambios en los hábitos (13,14) . El afrontamiento, o coping, se refiere a las estrategias adoptadas por las personas para adaptarse a circunstancias estresantes, negativas o desagradables, y se define como un conjunto de esfuerzos cognitivos y de comportamiento utilizados por los individuos con el fin de hacer frente a las demandas específicas que pueden surgir en situaciones de estrés (15,16) . ...
We evaluated a psychological intervention program to patients eligible for bariatric surgery, performing lifting coping strategies, anxiety manifestations and lifestyle changes, comparing them to obese patients without exposure to the intervention. The cognitive-behavioral program consists of 12 group sessions, in which they are addressed issues relevant to the process of habit change and preparation for surgery. The comparison of pre and post-intervention and between groups showed improvements in the experimental group. It is highlighted the importance of continued counseling as a promoter of skills required to face adverse situations of obesity and treatment. Studies with larger samples, and more attention to anxiety variables are suggested.
... Experienced weight stigma has been linked to body image dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, depression and psychiatric disorders, including symptoms such as suicidal ideation (Eisenberg, Neumark-Sztainer, & Story, 2003;Puhl & Heuer, 2009). Furthermore, the bulk of research demonstrates that weight stigma does not motivate weight loss (Li & Rukavina, 2009;Wott & Carels, 2010;an exception is Latner, Wilson, Jackson, & Stunkard, 2009). ...
Objective: This study aimed to replicate Harris, Harris, and Bochner’s (1982) early experiment on obesity stereotyping to examine whether negative obesity stereotypes persist and in what form. Method: A sample of psychology students (N = 506) read a description of a target described as female or male, overweight or average weight, and wearing glasses or not, who they subsequently rated on 12 descriptors. Results: Overweight targets were rated as significantly less active, assertive, athletic, attractive, happy, hardworking, masculine, popular, and successful than average weight targets. This negative stereotype effect of target weight was much larger than effects observed for sex or wearing glasses. There were no differences in effect sizes for target weight between this study and the original study. Conclusions: It was concluded that the negative obesity stereotypes reported by Harris et al. have persisted over a 30-year period, despite the fact that people who are overweight are no longer a minority. Efforts are needed to challenge negative stereotyping of this group. Future research could examine why stereotypes of overweight people are resistant to change.
... Therefore, strategies of coping -commonly defined as cognitive and behavioural efforts used to manage external and internal demands [26] -play a central role in the treatment of obesity. In particular, obese individuals do not only have to cope with physical and mental consequences of obesity itself and with challenges of weight reduction attempts, but also with negative or discriminative social issues like stigmatization (obesity bias) [27]. However, for individuals with a body mass index (BMI) above 40.0 ...
Reduced physical activity is supposed to be associated with depressiveness and more passive coping patterns. For further evaluation of this assumed relation we studied energy expenditure due to physical activity - usually referred to as activity thermogenesis (AT) - together with depressiveness (clinical diagnosis, depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire), and coping behaviours (Brief COPE Inventory) in 50 patients with high-grade obesity (42 ± 12 years; 9 with II° and 41 with III° obesity) aiming at bariatric surgery.
AT was assessed with a portable armband device (SenseWear™ armband). Depressiveness and coping were assessed using validated questionnaires.
Weight-adjusted non-exercise AT and intensity of physical activity (metabolic equivalent) correlated inversely with body mass index (non-exercise AT: r = -0.32, P < 0.05; mean metabolic equivalent: r = -0.37, P < 0.01) but not with depressiveness. The coping strategies "support coping" and "active coping" showed significant inverse correlations to a) weight-adjusted non-exercise AT ("support coping": r = -0.34, P < 0.05; "active coping": r = -0.36, P < 0.05), b) weight-adjusted exercise-related AT ("support coping": r = -0.36, P < 0.05; "active coping": r = -0.38, P < 0.01) and c) intensity of physical activity (for mean metabolic equivalent: "support coping": r = -0.38, P < 0.01; "active coping": r = -0.40, P < 0.01; for duration of exercise-related AT: "support coping": r = -0.36, P < 0.05; "active coping": r = -0.38, P < 0.01).
AT was not associated with depressiveness. Furthermore, supposed adaptive coping strategies of individuals aiming at bariatric surgery were negatively associated with AT.
... Second, most research about children and adolescents has explored how they judge and exclude others based on weight (DeJong, 1980;James, 2000;MacNevin, 2004;Puhl and Latner, 2007;Su and Di Santo, 2012). Few studies have examined individual experiences that young people have had with weight discrimination (Eriksen and Manke, 2011;Li and Rukavina, 2009;Wills et al., 2006). ...
People with a big body are tainted in western societies. Although most research on obesity occurs in the medical context, few studies investigate characteristics and effects of feelings and fears related to the fat stigma in the absence of overt discrimination. By linking Norbert Elias's and George H. Mead's theoretical frameworks, this paper offers a different approach to understanding and investigating felt stigma. The study is based on secondary data (25 semistructured interviews with children and adolescents). It explores internalized societal perspectives on overweight and obesity and inquires into the way in which interviewees handle the blame frame of personal responsibility during their interview. The preliminary findings suggest that specific forms of managing one's self-presentation in interviews indicate felt stigma. Consequently, the paper argues for an analytical approach that extends the focus on the content of interviews to include its dynamics.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
... Literature documents several coping behaviours which alter the impact of weight-based victimization on healthy lifestyles [10,22,23,[44][45][46]. Nine items reflecting reoccurring themes were constructed after reviewing this literature (see Table 1). ...
Obese youth are at increased risk for peer victimization, which may heighten their risk of psychosocial problems and physical activity avoidance, and lower the effectiveness of professional and lifestyle weight-loss initiatives. Little is known about obese adolescents' risk for victimization from cyber-bullying and how this relates to psychosocial functioning and healthy lifestyle barriers. The purpose of the study was to assess traditional and cyber-victimization among adolescents with severe obesity and its relation to psychosocial distress and barriers to healthy lifestyles.
A sample of 102 obese adolescents (mean age = 15.32 +/-1.71) in residential treatment was matched with 102 normal-weight youngsters from the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study (mean age = 15.30 +/-1.73).
Adolescents with obesity were significantly more often cyber-victimized than normal-weight peers. Obese youth victimized by traditional bullying experienced lower quality of life, lower motivation for physical activity and higher avoidance and emotional coping towards healthy lifestyles than those non-victimized. Obese cyber-victims experienced significantly higher suicidal ideation.
Traditional and cyber-victimization may hinder treatment effectiveness and healthy lifestyle change in adolescents with obesity. Health professionals should pro-actively address peer victimization and psychosocial functioning during multidisciplinary obesity treatment. Schools could contribute to a better physical and psychosocial health of obese youth by implementing multi-behavioral health-promotion programs.
... Overall, this study established good psychometric properties of the shortened WBIS. The provision of norms is essential to identify individuals at increased risk of psychopathology and in need of interventions to reduce weight bias internalization [30,31]. Future research is warranted on additional indicators of reliability and validity, for example, retest reliability, sensitivity to change, and prognostic validity. ...
Internalizing the pervasive weight bias commonly directed towards individuals with overweight and obesity, co-occurs with increased psychopathology and impaired quality of life. This study sought to establish population norms and psychometric properties of the most widely used self-report questionnaire, the Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS), in a representative community sample.
In a survey of the German population, N = 1158 individuals with overweight and obesity were assessed with the WBIS and self-report measures for convergent validation.
Item analysis revealed favorable item-total correlation of all but one WBIS item. With this item removed, item homogeneity and internal consistency were excellent. The one-factor structure of the WBIS was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent validity was shown through significant associations with measures of depressive and somatoform symptoms. The WBIS contributed to the explanation of variance in depressive and somatoform symptoms over and above body mass index. Higher WBIS scores were found in women than in men, in individuals with obesity than in individuals with overweight, and in those with lower education or income than those with higher education or income. Sex-specific norms were provided.
The results showed good psychometric properties of the WBIS after removal of one item. Future research is warranted on further indicators of reliability and validity, for example, retest reliability, sensitivity to change, and prognostic validity.
... In addition to perpetuating weight bias, stigmatizing video portrayals documented in the present study may also have implications for obese children and adults themselves who view online news media. Increasing research has documented internalization of weight stigma by obese youth and adults (Li & Rukavina, 2009;Quinlan et al., 2009;Wang et al., 2004), which can increase vulnerability to a range of negative psychological and physical health consequences (e.g., lower self-esteem, increased depressive and anxiety symptoms, binge eating). Given the tendency for people to accept visual images as reality (Messaris & Abraham, 2001), and the high percentage of the public reporting that pictures and videos provide them with a better understanding of news events than written content or hearing facts (Pew Research Center Publications, 2008c), obese individuals who view stigmatizing portrayals in the news media may be at risk for internalizing negative weight-based stereotypes and blaming themselves for negative societal attitudes. ...
The news media has substantial influence on public perceptions of social and health issues. This study conducted a video content analysis to examine portrayals of obese persons in online news reports about obesity. The authors downloaded online news videos about obesity (N = 371) from 5 major news websites and systematically coded visual portrayals of obese and nonobese adults and youth in these videos. The authors found that 65% of overweight/obese adults and 77% of overweight/obese youth were portrayed in a negative, stigmatizing manner across multiple obesity-related topics covered in online news videos. In particular, overweight/obese individuals were significantly more likely than were nonoverweight individuals to be portrayed as headless, with an unflattering emphasis on isolated body parts, from an unflattering rear view of their excess weight, eating unhealthy foods, engaging in sedentary behavior, and dressed in inappropriately fitting clothing. Nonoverweight individuals were significantly more likely to be portrayed positively. In conclusion, obese children and adults are frequently stigmatized in online news videos about obesity. These findings have important implications for public perceptions of obesity and obese persons and may reinforce negative societal weight bias.
... Furthermore, obese people are often exposed to labelling and discrimination, which might negatively affect quality of life, self-worth and body image (Fabricatore & Wadden, 2004;Jackson et al., 2000). As a consequence, obese people may avoid physical settings (including exercise and sport), where their body shape does not correspond to the prevailing norms (Li & Rukavina, 2009). Ultimately, low activity levels lead to a vicious cycle as reduced energy expenditure facilitates the occurrence of excess energy (Taheri, 2006). ...
This study examined the long-term efficacy of a short exercise-intervention trial (MoVo-LISA) with overweight and obese individuals. Mediators of physical activity, exercise, health, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) were used as outcome variables. A non-randomized trial was conducted including an experimental and a wait-list control group. Both groups were collapsed to analyse long-term effects after approximately 1 year. At the long-term follow-up, 34 participants returned their questionnaires (68%). MoVo-LISA accomplished its primary goal, which consisted in increasing exercise participation. Participants increased their exercise participation from 82 ± 119 min/wk at baseline to 109 ± 121 min/wk at follow-up. This might be attributable to the fact that participants reported more intrinsic motivation, increased action planning and reduced exercise barriers. Additionally, participants reported enhanced health. Initial weight losses and reductions in BMI, however, disappeared at the long-term follow-up. MoVo-LISA seems a useful approach in the therapy of obesity to increase energy expenditure and might produce the best effects if used within nutrition counselling.
... Furthermore, obese people are often exposed to labelling and discrimination, which might negatively affect quality of life, self-worth and body image (Fabricatore & Wadden, 2004;Jackson et al., 2000). As a consequence, obese people may avoid physical settings (including exercise and sport), where their body shape does not correspond to the prevailing norms (Li & Rukavina, 2009). Ultimately, low activity levels lead to a vicious cycle as reduced energy expenditure facilitates the occurrence of excess energy (Taheri, 2006). ...
This study examined the long-term efficacy of a short exercise-intervention trial (MoVo-LISA) with overweight and obese individuals. Mediators of physical activity, exercise, health, body weight, and body mass index (BMI) were used as outcome variables. A non-randomized trial was conducted including an experimental and a wait-list control group. Both groups were collapsed to analyse long-term effects after approximately 1 year. At the long-term follow-up, 34 participants returned their questionnaires (68%). MoVo-LISA accomplished its primary goal, which consisted in increasing exercise participation. Participants increased their exercise participation from 82 ± 119 min/wk at baseline to 109 ± 121 min/wk at follow-up. This might be attributable to the fact that participants reported more intrinsic motivation, increased action planning and reduced exercise barriers. Additionally, participants reported enhanced health. Initial weight losses and reductions in BMI, however, disappeared at the long-term follow-up. MoVoLISA seems a useful approach in the therapy of obesity to increase energy expenditure and might produce the best effects if used within nutrition counselling.
... Alternatively, educators can teach youth adaptive coping strategies (ie, problemfocused coping) to buffer them from the negative consequences of weight bias experienced during physical activity. 12,40 With efforts to create a supportive and welcoming environment, participation in physical activity among overweight youth may be maintained, or even augmented. ...
At school, physical education (PE) teachers and coaches may be key supports for physical activity. Unfortunately, PE teachers may endorse negative stereotypes and attitudes toward overweight youth. These biases may influence the amount of instruction physical educators provide to students and their participation in PE or other physical activity.
This study assessed physical educators' (N = 162) ability and performance expectations, attributions, and attitudes toward overweight and non-overweight students.
Physical educators endorsed inferior ability expectations for overweight students compared to non-overweight students. Poorer performance expectations were limited to overweight female targets, but when controlling for participant characteristics, this effect became marginally significant for overweight male targets. There was a trend such that participants endorsed more external attributions for the abilities and performance of overweight female students, yet this effect was reduced to marginal significance when controlling for participant characteristics. Participants endorsed more negative attitudes for both overweight males and females compared to non-overweight youth.
Findings indicate that physical educators' expectations, attributions, and attitudes regarding students may be negatively influenced by youth body weight, and differ by student gender. The potential effect of physical educators' weight bias on adolescent participation in physical activity and its implications for students' physical health, academic achievement, and social development are discussed.
... Overweight and obese children unable to successfully engage in physical challenges may resist participating in physical activities and overall learning solicitations. Furthermore, parents, caregivers and teachers may be less likely to encourage obese children to engage in physical activity based on their perceptions that the child has limited physical abilities [8] . Impaired physical development could trigger a cycle of physical activity avoidance and reduced social interactions, which could lead to further reduction in physical fitness of obese children [9]. ...
Few population-based studies have assessed relationships between body weight and motor skills in young children. Our objective was to estimate the association between obesity and motor skills at 4 years and 5-6 years of age in the United States. We used repeated cross-sectional assessments of the national sample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) of preschool 4-year-old children (2005-2006; n = 5 100) and 5-6-year-old kindergarteners (2006-2007; n = 4 700). Height, weight, and fine and gross motor skills were assessed objectively via direct standardized procedures. We used categorical and continuous measures of body weight status, including obesity (Body Mass Index (BMI) ≥ 95th percentile) and BMI z-scores. Multivariate logistic and linear models estimated the association between obesity and gross and fine motor skills in very young children adjusting for individual, social, and economic characteristics and parental involvement.
The prevalence of obesity was about 15%. The relationship between motor skills and obesity varied across types of skills. For hopping, obese boys and girls had significantly lower scores, 20% lower in obese preschoolers and 10% lower in obese kindergarteners than normal weight counterparts, p < 0.01. Obese girls could jump 1.6-1.7 inches shorter than normal weight peers (p < 0.01). Other gross motor skills and fine motor skills of young children were not consistently related to BMI z-scores and obesity.
Based on objective assessment of children's motor skills and body weight and a full adjustment for confounding covariates, we find no reduction in overall coordination and fine motor skills in obese young children. Motor skills are adversely associated with childhood obesity only for skills most directly related to body weight.
Grounded in self-determination theory, this cross-sectional study aims to explore the multiple mediating roles of perceived teachers’ support for students with obesity and their engagement in physical education. The study included 322 Chinese high school students with obesity (mean age, 16.84 [±0.147] years; 219 [68%] male, 103 [32%] female). Mplus 8.3 software was used to test the multiple mediating effects. After controlling for grade and gender, teacher support was found to neither directly affect students’ engagement nor directly stimulate their autonomous motivation; however, it could affect their engagement through the two pathways of 1) basic psychological needs and 2) the chain mediation of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation. Results suggest that not all teacher support, but only teacher support meeting students’ basic psychological needs, can promote engagement in PE by students with obesity. Future research should explore strategies according to the physical and mental characteristics of students with obesity, to enrich and innovate the theoretical system of teacher support in physical education. Furthermore, teacher support interventions to promote engagement among students with obesity should be developed.
Introduction: Obesity, like any medical condition, is a stressful experience that detrimentally affects the quality of life and mood of the patient.
Objectives: To evaluate the correlation between stress coping mechanisms and mood changes in morbidly obese patients.
Subjects and Methods: Stress coping styles (Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations [CISS]) and mood (UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist [UMACL]) were evaluated among 16 morbidly obese patients (42.9 ± 13.4 years, body mass index = 50.00 ± 6.85) who were deemed suitable for intragastric balloon treatment. The CISS questionnaire was completed once, whereas the UMACL was filled in every day, for seven consecutive days.
Results: It was seen that the main effect of an increased task-oriented coping (TOC) style was to significantly decrease the level of tense arousal (TA), and increase the level of energetic arousal (EA). Individuals with a higher level of TOC generally had a higher level of EA than those with a lower level of TOC.
Conclusions: The TOC style shows significant importance for influencing the mood of people with morbid obesity. This applies both to the level of TA, which is related to the experienced stress, and the level of EA, which is important for coping with the disease.
This study tested the hypothesis that internalized weight bias (WBI) is negatively associated with health‐related quality of life, weight loss and health behaviour adherence (eg, physical activity, diet, vitamin adherence) in patients who had weight loss surgery (WLS). It also tested whether self‐efficacy for exercise, barriers to being active and depression were mediators between WBI and moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Participants were recruited from online support forums. They completed an anonymous online survey assessing WBI, physical activity, health behaviour adherence, depression, health‐related quality of life, self‐efficacy for exercise and barriers to being physically active. Multiple regression analyses and a bootstrapping approach for mediation were used. The sample included 112 primarily white and female adults, who had surgery 1 month to 24 years prior. WBI was negatively associated with weight loss since surgery, MVPA, dietary adherence, vitamin adherence and mental health‐related quality of life, and was not associated with walking, physical health‐related quality of life or fluid intake adherence. Self‐efficacy for exercise, barriers to being active and depression were partial mediators between WBI and physical activity. After WLS, WBI may signal poorer adherence to critical health behaviours. It also is associated with less weight loss. WBI should be assessed and treated by WLS providers.
Background
This study aimed to assess quality of life in obese patients 1 year after bariatric surgery taking into consideration the influence of socio-demographic, clinical, and psychological variables.
Methods
A sample of 90 patients undergoing bariatric surgery was assessed in two moments: before surgery and 1 year after surgery.
Results
Social support, problem-focused coping strategies, and quality of life increased after surgery, while eating disorder behaviour and impulsiveness decreased. The presence of eating disorder behaviour predicted worse physical and mental quality of life and higher satisfaction with social support predicted better physical and mental quality of life. In addition, higher impulsiveness predicted worse mental quality of life. Spirituality moderated the relationship between impulsiveness and mental/physical quality of life.
Conclusions
Interventions should focus on promoting social support and coping strategies particularly spirituality since it played an important role in quality of life.
The objective of this study was to investigate the intervention impact in the performance of overweight (n=6) and obesity (n=14) children in manual control and dexterity, body coordination, strength and agility, locomotor and object control skills and balance. The Body Mass Index was used to investigate nutrition status classified according to Center for Disease Control, Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2, Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 e Test of Gross Motor Development-2 to investigated motor performance. Dependent and independent t-tests and effect size were conducted. The results showed that: (1) significant changes for intervention group (IG) from pre- to post-intervention in balance (p=.042), locomotor (p=.004) object control (p=.001) skills; (2) declines in the control group (CG) for manual (p=.021) and body (p=.044) coordination, and strength and agility (p=.002); (3) no changes were observed from pre- to post-intervention in control and manual dexterity, and ball skills (p.05); (4) in the pre-intervention children in the CG showed superior performance compared to the children in the IG in body coordination (p=.018), in the post-intervention the IG achieve similar performance to the CG (p=.968); and, (5) for the other comparisons significant differences between groups were not found (p.05). The motor intervention focused to the needs of children, coupled with the opportunity to practice and motivation strategies promote benefits in motor ability of children overweight.
Objectif
Etudier les effets de l'âge, du sexe, du poids et de leurs interactions sur l'estime globale de soi (EGS) et le concept de soi physique d'adolescents présentant une déficience intellectuelle (DI).
Méthode
Un échantillon de 353 adolescents DI, âgés de 12 à 18 ans, a participé à cette étude. La version très courte de l'inventaire du soi physique pour adolescents DI (communément appelée PSI-VSF-ID) a été utilisée pour évaluer l'EGS et les perceptions du soi physique (la valeur physique perçue [VPP], la compétence sportive [CS], la condition physique, l'apparence physique et la force).
Résultats
Les analyses de covariances multivariées montrent: (i) des niveaux d'EGS et de soi physique inférieurs (à l'exception de la VPP) chez les filles par rapport aux garçons; (ii) une diminution des scores d'EGS, de VPP, de CS et d'apparence physique perçue (APP) au cours de l'adolescence; (iii) des scores d'EGS, de VPP, et d'APP inférieurs chez les adolescents obèses comparés à leurs pairs en surpoids ou de poids normal; et (iv) que les filles obèses présentent des scores d'APP inférieurs à ceux des autres adolescents.
Conclusion
Les résultats obtenus pour le sexe et l'âge sont quasiment conformes à ceux de la littérature en population générale. En revanche, ils s'en éloignent pour l'effet principal de la catégorie de poids.
Obesity is characterized as a global epidemic and includes functional relationships with psychosocial variables. This study aimed to conduct a survey of the world production related to the topic of coping strategies and treatment of obesity, available from 2012 to 2001. A literature research was conducted in the data bases Pubmed, Capes, Scielo, Lilacs and Google Scholar. Were extracted 92 abstracts and selected 16 full articles. As content, the articles were classified as: (a) Coping strategies and obesity variables (seven items), ( b) Coping strategies and prejudices directed to obese people (four items), and (c) Coping strategies and variables related to bariatric surgery (five items). More adaptive strategies and especially focused on problem solving has proven most effective in combating obesity adversities, including prejudices and maintenance of eating habits.
Overweight and obese youth face frequent stigmatization because of their excess weight, most often in the form of teasing and bullying. Weight stigmatization in youth begins early in childhood and is prevalent in the school setting by adolescence. Not only are obese youth vulnerable to stigmatization from peers, but increasing studies also indicate that educators and even parents are sources of weight bias. This has concerning implications for children's health, because research over the past decade has consistently demonstrated links between weight-based stigmatization and negative outcomes for psychological, social, and physical well-being. To reduce weight-based stigmatization and protect obese youth from the deleterious effects of victimization, efforts are needed to identify and evaluate successful methods to reduce bias toward obese youths, implement effective school-based policies that prohibit weight-based victimization, and ensure that initiatives to address childhood obesity do not impose further stigmatization on overweight and obese youth. These efforts will require increased vigilance by educators, parents, schools, public health initiatives, antibullying campaigns, and policy makers.
Americans have long considered fat problematic, and overweight individuals now endure a similar level of discrimination as other stigmatized groups (Latner et al. 2008). Weight-loss blogs serve as public forums in which bloggers demonstrate an understanding of the stigma against fat and detail dieting efforts. These blogs are also a space for dieters to trade information such as diet plans or products. This study conducted a link analysis to learn which consumer products were favored by weight-loss products. Results determined the bloggers avoided linking to food or diet products and instead favored exercise plans or training equipment.
The aim of this study was to provide basic information on participation and adherence of exercise between obese children and normal-weight children by comparing their level of stress towards exercising.
BACKGROUND
We used a latent class analysis (LCA) to characterize coping styles of urban youth and examined if coping styles moderated the association between experiencing discrimination and bullying and depressive symptoms. METHODS
The data come from the 2006 Boston Youth Survey, where students were asked to select 2 behaviors they do most often when they are upset, from a list of 15 options. A total of 927 (75%) students contributed to the LCA analytic sample (44% non-Hispanic Blacks, 29% Hispanics, and 58% girls). Relative and absolute fit indices determined the number of classes. An interaction term between types of discrimination and bullying experienced and coping style tested for moderation. RESULTSThe LCA revealed that a 3-class solution had the best fit (Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ratio test, 4-class vs 3-class, p-value .12). The largest coping style class was characterized by high endorsement of distractive coping strategies (59%), the second class was characterized by using supportive coping strategies (27%), and the third class was characterized by using avoidance coping strategies (12%). We found a significant interaction between discrimination and coping style for depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS
The relationship between experiencing discrimination and depression varied based on coping style and the type of discrimination and bullying experienced.
Objective:
Weight bias has strong associations with psychopathology in overweight and obese individuals. However, self-evaluative processes, as conceptualized in the process model of self-stigma, and implications for other health-related outcomes, remain to be clarified.
Design and methods:
In a representative general population sample of N = 1158 overweight and obese individuals, the impact of core self-evaluation as a mediator between weight bias internalization and mental and global health outcomes as well as between weight bias internalization and health care utilization, was examined using structural equation modeling.
Results:
In overweight and obese individuals, greater weight bias internalization predicted lower core self-evaluation, which in turn predicted greater depression and anxiety, lower global health, and greater health care utilization. These mediational associations were largely stable in subsample analyses and after controlling for sociodemographic variables.
Conclusions:
The results show that overweight and obese individuals with internalized weight bias are at risk for impaired health, especially if they experience low core self-evaluation, making them a group with which to target for interventions to reduce self-stigma. Weight bias internalization did not represent a barrier to health care utilization, but predicted greater health care utilization in association with greater health impairments.
Zusammenfassung. Korperliche Inaktivitat ist eine wichtige Ursache von Adipositas. Die Forderung eines korperlich-aktiven Lebensstils ist deshalb aus praventivmedizinischer Sicht ein wunschenswertes Ziel. Bisherige Interventionsprogramme konzentrierten sich vorwiegend auf die Verbesserung der Motivation. Programme fur ubergewichtige und adipose Personen sollten jedoch verstarkt auch volitionale Faktoren in den Blick nehmen. Um herauszufinden, ob durch die Starkung volitionaler Kompetenzen die Alltags- und Sportaktivitat sowie die Determinanten korperlich-sportlicher Aktivitat beeinflusst werden konnen, wurde in der vorliegenden Studie mit N = 50 ubergewichtigen und adiposen Personen das Kurz-Bewegungsberatungsprogramm MoVo-LISA durchgefuhrt. Dazu wurden uber einen Zeitraum von vier Monaten eine Experimental- (n = 21) und eine Wartegruppe (n = 29) dreimal befragt. Die Resultate zeigen signifikante Verbesserungen hinsichtlich der Sportaktivitat, der Konsequenzerwartungen, der Zielintention, der Implementier...
Die Adipositas ist im Vergleich zu vielen anderen körperlichen und psychischen Gesundheitsstörungen mit dem gesellschaftlich wohl am meisten akzeptierten Stigma belegt. Dieses Stigma, z. B. der Schuld am Übergewicht, kann bis zu tatsächlicher Diskriminierung in einer Vielzahl von Lebensbereichen führen. Die stigmatisierten adipösen Menschen selbst haben die Tendenz, das Stigma anzunehmen: Dieses Selbststigma vermindert ihren Selbstwert, verstärkt psychische Symptome, beeinträchtigt die Lebensqualität und führt dazu, dass die Betroffenen wenig Bewältigungsverhalten zeigen. Gewichtsbezogene Stigmatisierung macht auch vor dem Gesundheitswesen nicht halt und kann Auswirkungen auf Prävention und Behandlung haben. Das Kapitel beschreibt den Forschungsstand zur gewichtsbezogenen Stigmatisierung und Diskriminierung sowie deren Auswirkungen auf die Betroffenen.
With prevalence approaching 20% in the United States, adolescent obesity has become a common problem for patients, parents, and clinicians. Obese adolescents may experience physical and psychosocial complications, as illustrated by the case of Ms K, a 14-year-old girl with a body mass index of 40. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of pediatric obesity treatment is modest in younger children and declines in older children and adolescents, and few interventions involving adolescents have produced significant long-term weight loss. Nevertheless, novel strategies to alter energy balance have shown preliminary evidence of benefit in clinical trials, including a diet focused on food quality rather than fat restriction and a lifestyle approach to encourage enjoyable physical activity throughout the day rather than intermittent exercise. Parents can have an important influence on weight-related behaviors in adolescents despite typically complicated emotional dynamics at this age, especially through the use of noncoercive methods. A key parenting practice applicable to children of all ages is to create a protective environment in the home, substituting nutritious foods for unhealthful ones and facilitating physical activities instead of sedentary pursuits. Other behaviors that may promote successful long-term weight management include good sleep hygiene, stress reduction, and mindfulness. Ultimately, the obesity epidemic can be attributed to changes in the social environment that hinder healthful lifestyle habits, and prevention will require a comprehensive public health strategy.
This article presents a framework for studying personality in the stress process. The framework specifies that personality may affect both exposure and reactivity to stressful events and that both processes may explain how personality affects health and psychological outcomes. The framework also specifies that personality differences in reactivity may be due to differential choice of coping efforts and differential effectiveness of those efforts. In a 14-day daily diary study of 94 students, this framework was used to analyze the links among neuroticism, daily interpersonal conflicts, coping with conflicts, and distress. Results showed that high-neuroticism participants had greater exposure and reactivity to conflicts. Furthermore, high- and low-neuroticism participants differed both in their choice of coping efforts and in the effectiveness of those efforts, a possibility not considered in previous models of personality in the stress process.
Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion—that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation—extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures—which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges’ attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination.
We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotion-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.
Attributing negative outcomes to prejudice and discrimination may protect the mood and self-esteem of some stigmatized groups. Thus, the overweight may be low in self-esteem because they blame their weight, but not the attitudes of others, for negative outcomes based on their weight. In an experiment, 27 overweight and 31 normal weight college women received either positive or negative social feedback from a male evaluator. Relative to other groups, overweight women who received negative feedback attributed the feedback to their weight but did not blame the evaluator for his reaction. This attributional pattern resulted in more negative mood for these overweight women in comparison with other groups. Dimensions of stigma that may account for differences in the tendency to attribute negative outcomes to prejudice, and implications of these findings for weight loss programs and psychotherapy for the overweight, are discussed.
The authors propose an Attribution-Value model of prejudice, which hypothesizes that people are prejudiced against groups that they feel have some negative attribute for which they are held responsible. The structure of prejudice against fat people was compared in six nations: Australia, India, Poland, Turkey, the United States of America, and Venezuela. Both a negative cultural value for fatness and a tendency to hold people responsible predicts anti-fat prejudice. Most important, a multiplicative hypothesis was supported—people with both a negative value for fatness and a tendency to hold people responsible were more anti-fat than could be predicted from cultural value and attributions alone. These effects were more pronounced in individualist cultures. The authors develop the Attribution-Value model of prejudice that can apply to prejudice of many sorts across many cultures.
The recent literature on self-report measures of coping reactions and strategies is reviewed and critically evaluated. Most of the coping research has focused on assessing several basic coping behaviours or reactions. These include dimensions such as task-oriented coping, emotion-oriented coping, and avoidance-oriented coping. In general, most of the coping scales that have been developed have a variety of psychometric inadequacies. This state of affairs has created at least two major problems in the coping literature: (1) The proliferation of problematic coping scales, sometimes measuring different constructs, makes it difficult to generalize from one population and/or one health problem to another. (2) Since psychometrically sound instruments are a precondition for studying the relationships among coping, personality, and health, scales with psychometric problems preclude obtaining valid and generalizable information about coping behaviour. Methodological problems in the area have seriously restricted the development of a systematic body of theory and empirical knowledge about coping.
Threat appraisals are a key component of the coping process, yet little is known about the factors that influence children's perceptions of threat during stressful situations. The present study examined predictors of threat perceptions in response to everyday stressors among 215 fourth and fifth graders, and their parents and teachers. Children's internal resources, the family environment, and qualities of the stressful encounter were studied for their contributions to perceptions of threat. Children's ratings of maternal and paternal acceptance and maternal ratings of family expressiveness were associated with lower perceptions of threat; children's ratings of other-culpability were associated with higher perceptions of threat. Although threat perceptions were associated with coping behavior, threat perceptions did not mediate associations between family, contextual, or dispositional influences and coping. Results are discussed in terms of current stress and coping theory.
The purpose of this study was to conduct an intervention to change attitudes toward obese individuals. Ninety-five Kinesiology
undergraduates conducted a FITNESSGRAM service-learning project with school-aged children. They completed anti-fat attitude
test (AFAT) and explicit attitude assessments before and after the intervention. The results indicated participants had anti-fat
bias toward obese individuals on the lazy/motivated scale, but not on the other four scales on pre measurements. Their anti-fat
attitudes concerning whether people are responsible for their weight were significantly reduced through the intervention.
Five themes emerged from the undergraduates’ reflective papers that support the efficacy of the intervention: Healthy lifestyle—an
individual choice, barriers to physical activity, multi-factorial nature of obesity, and promotion of physical activity through
information and encouragement. The findings partially support experiential learning as a potential mechanism to reduce individuals’
anti-fat attitudes.
This paper argues for a substantial re-conceptualization of coping. The strong focus on emotional distress as the marker of coping efforts has masked the importance of social functions, processes and outcomes in coping with life stress, particularly the role of communal coping. Communal coping is a cooperative problem-solving process salient in coping with both individual and collective stressors. It involves the appraisal of a stressor as `our' issue and cooperative action to address it. Beyond its important role in coping, communal coping is endemic to notions of social integration, interdependence and close relationships, and may underlie the resilience of families and other social units dealing with stressful life events. The authors present a framework that distinguishes communal coping from other individual and social coping processes. We also provide an analysis of benefits and costs of communal coping, a discussion of key factors in its utilization, and suggestions for further research on the functioning of communal coping in contemporary society. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68813/2/10.1177_0265407598155001.pdf
We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.
This article presents a framework for studying personality in the stress process. The framework specifies that personality may affect both exposure and reactivity to stressful events and that both processes may explain how personality affects health and psychological outcomes. The framework also specifies that personality differences in reactivity may be due to differential choice of coping efforts and differential effectiveness of those efforts. In a 14-day daily study of 94 students, this framework was used to analyze the links among neuroticism, daily interpersonal conflicts, coping with conflicts, and distress. Results showed that high-neuroticism participants had greater exposure and reactivity to conflicts. Furthermore, high- and low-neuroticism participants differed both in their choice of coping efforts and in the effectiveness of those efforts, a possibility not considered in previous models of personality in the stress process.
The prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents has increased, and television viewing has been suggested as a cause. We examined the relation between hours of television viewed and the prevalence of overweight in 1990, and the incidence and remission of overweight from 1986 to 1990 in a nationally representative cohort of 746 youths aged 10 to 15 years in 1990 whose mothers were 25 to 32 years old. Overweight was defined as a body mass index higher than the 85th percentile for age and gender.
We observed a strong dose-response relationship between the prevalence of overweight in 1990 and hours of television viewed. The odds of being overweight were 4.6 (95% confidence interval, 2.2 to 9.6) times greater for youth watching more than 5 hours of television per day compared with those watching 0 to 2 hours. When adjustments were made for previous overweight (in 1986), baseline maternal overweight, socioeconomic status, household structure, ethnicity, and maternal and child aptitude test scores, results were similar (odds ratio, 5.3; 95% confidence interval, 2.3 to 12.1). We also found significant relations between television viewing and increased incidence and decreased remission of overweight during this 4-year period, adjusted for baseline covariates. The adjusted odds of incidence were 8.3 (95% confidence interval, 2.6 to 26.5) times greater for youth watching more than 5 hours of television per day compared with those watching for 0 to 2 hours. Estimates of attributable risk indicate that more than 60% of overweight incidence in this population can be linked to excess television viewing time.
Television viewing affects overweight among youth, and reductions in viewing time could help prevent this increasingly common chronic health condition.
Although a link between attachment and peer relationships has been established, the mechanisms that account for this link have not been identified. The 1st goal of this study was to test emotion regulation as a mediator of this link in middle childhood. The 2nd goal was to examine how different aspects of emotion regulation relate to peer competence. Fifth graders completed self-report and semiprojective measures to index mother-child attachment, mothers reported on children's emotionality and coping strategies, and teachers reported on children's peer competence. Constructive coping was related to both attachment and peer competence, and mediated the association between attachment and peer competence, suggesting that emotion regulation is one of the mechanisms accounting for attachment-peer links. Constructive coping was more strongly associated with peer competence for children high on negative emotionality than for children low on negative emotionality.
Research on implicit stereotypes has raised important questions about an individual's ability to moderate and control stereotypic responses. With few strategies shown to be effective in moderating implicit effects, the present research investigates a new strategy based on focused mental imagery. Across 5 experiments, participants who engaged in counterstereotypic mental imagery produced substantially weaker implicit stereotypes compared with participants who engaged in neutral, stereotypic, or no mental imagery. This reduction was demonstrated with a variety of measures, eliminating explanations based on response suppression or shifts in response criterion. Instead, the results suggest that implicit stereotypes are malleable, and that controlled processes, such as mental imagery, may influence the stereotyping process at its early as well as later stages.
This study aimed to assess the prevalence of perceived weight-teasing and associations with unhealthy weight-control behaviors and binge eating in a population-based sample of youth. Particular focus was placed on overweight youth, who may be most vulnerable to weight-teasing.
The study population included 4746 adolescents from St Paul/Minneapolis public schools who completed surveys and anthropometric measurements as part of Project EAT, a population-based study of eating patterns and weight concerns among teens.
There were statistically significant associations between perceived weight-teasing and weight status; both overweight and underweight youth reported higher levels of teasing than average weight youth. Very overweight youth (body mass index (BMI) > or = 95th percentile) were most likely to be teased about their weight; 63% of very overweight girls, and 58% of very overweight boys reported being teased by their peers, while weight-teasing by family members was reported by 47% of these girls and 34% of these boys. Youth who were teased about their weight, particularly overweight girls, reported that it bothered them. Perceived weight-teasing was significantly associated with disordered eating behaviors among overweight and non-overweight girls and boys. For example, among overweight youth, 29% of girls and 18% of boys who experienced frequent weight-teasing reported binge-eating as compared to 16% of girls and 7% of boys who were not teased.
Many adolescents, in particular those who are overweight, report being teased about their weight and being bothered by the teasing. Weight-teasing is associated with disordered eating behaviors that may place overweight youth at increased risk for weight gain. Educational interventions and policies are needed to curtail weight-related mistreatment among youth.
National health guidelines advocate increased physical activity in children and adolescents, but specific goals are not being achieved. Data are needed on variables that influence children's decision to be active or sedentary.
We tested the association of weight criticism during physical activity (WCA) with attitudes toward physical activity and reported physical activity levels in children. We also tested whether these associations were moderated by children's ability to cope with weight criticism. Subjects were 576 fifth- through eighth-graders who completed a questionnaire on physical activity patterns, weight criticism history, and coping skills.
WCA was more common among girls than boys and among heavier children. In multiple regression analyses, WCA was associated with reduced sports enjoyment, perceived activity compared with peers, and mild-intensity leisure activity. These associations, however, were moderated by problem-focused coping skills such that the relationships were attenuated in children who were better able to cope with weight criticism. Avoidant coping skills also moderated the relationship between WCA and sports enjoyment.
Children who are the targets of weight criticism by family and peers have negative attitudes toward sports and report reduced physical activity levels, although these relationships may be buffered by certain coping skills. Assessing WCA and related coping skills may be clinically useful for identifying barriers to physical activity in certain children (eg, the obese) and may be a potential target for interventions.
This study aimed to identify factors in school physical and social environments that may facilitate or compete with programs and policies to improve student physical activity and nutrition. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with students, faculty, and staff of two public middle schools. Participants identified numerous aspects of the school environments as significant. Competition, teasing and bullying, time, and safety were described as major barriers for students to be physically active during physical education class, on sports teams, and before and after school. The quality of the food served, easy access to nonnutritious snacks, limited time for lunch period, and weight concerns emerged as significant reasons why students do not eat nutritious meals in school. When developing programs and policies to improve the health of students, environmental influences that undermine efforts to improve student health behaviors must be addressed.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children is rising. Childhood obesity is associated with many negative social and psychological ramifications such as peer aggression. However, the relationship between overweight and obesity status with different forms of bullying behaviors remains unclear. The purpose of this article is to examine these relationships.
We examined associations between bullying behaviors (physical, verbal, relational, and sexual harassment) with overweight and obesity status in a representative sample of 5749 boys and girls (11-16 years old). The results were based on the Canadian records from the 2001/2002 World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children Survey. Body mass index (BMI) and bullying behaviors were determined from self-reports.
With the exception of 15- to 16-year-old boys, relationships were observed between BMI category and peer victimization, such that overweight and obese youth were at greater relative odds of being victims of aggression than normal-weight youth. Strong and significant associations were seen for relational (eg, withdrawing friendship or spreading rumors or lies) and overt (eg, name-calling or teasing or hitting, kicking, or pushing) victimization but not for sexual harassment. Independent of gender, there were no associations between BMI category and bully-perpetrating in 11- to 14-year-olds. However, there were relationships between BMI category and bully-perpetrating in 15- to 16-year-old boys and girls such that the overweight and obese 15- to 16-year-olds were more likely to perpetrate bullying than their normal-weight classmates. Associations were seen for relational (boys only) and overt (both genders) forms of bully-perpetrating but not for sexual harassment.
Overweight and obese school-aged children are more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of bullying behaviors than their normal-weight peers. These tendencies may hinder the short- and long-term social and psychological development of overweight and obese youth.
Research on implicit stereotypes has raised important questions about an individual's ability to moderate and control stereotypic responses. With few strategies shown to be effective in moderating implicit effects, the present research investigates a new strategy based on focused mental imagery. Across 5 experiments, participants who engaged in counterstereotypic mental imagery produced substantially weaker implicit stereotypes compared with participants who engaged in neutral, stereotypic, or no mental imagery. This reduction was demonstrated with a variety of measures, eliminating explanations based on response suppression or shifts in response criterion. Instead, the results suggest that implicit stereotypes are malleable, and that controlled processes, such as mental imagery, may influence the stereotyping process at its early as well as later stages.
Over the past 20 years, many theories on achievement motivation have been established to understand the complex interaction of motivational variables and identify the conditions that can enhance individuals' motivation. This review explores the role of conceptions of ability, its relations to other major motivational frameworks and factors affecting individuals' conceptions of ability, with the goal of identifying the major contributions to the research knowledge base. Research findings show that beliefs about the nature of ability are critical elements to all other major theories. Conceptions of ability and all other major theories directly affect motivational patterns and outcomes. Finally, based on the literature reviewed, a conceptual theoretical model is proposed.
Background and Methods:
The prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents has increased, and television viewing has been suggested as a cause. We examined the relation between hours of television viewed and the prevalence of overweight in 1990, and the incidence and remission of overweight from 1986 to 1990 in a nationally representative cohort of 746 youths aged 10 to 15 years in 1990 whose mothers were 25 to 32 years old. Overweight was defined as a body mass index higher than the 85th percentile for age and gender.Results:
We observed a strong dose-response relationship between the prevalence of overweight in 1990 and hours of television viewed. The odds of being overweight were 4.6 (95% confidence interval, 2.2 to 9.6) times greater for youth watching more than 5 hours of television per day compared with those watching for 0 to 2 hours. When adjustments were made for previous overweight (in 1986), baseline maternal overweight, socioeconomic status, household structure, ethnicity, and maternal and child aptitude test scores, results were similar (odds ratio, 5.3; 95% confidence interval, 2.3 to 12.1). We also found significant relations between television viewing and increased incidence and decreased remission of overweight during this 4-year period, adjusted for baseline covariates. The adjusted odds of incidence were 8.3 (95% confidence interval, 2.6 to 26.5) times greater for youth watching more than 5 hours of television per day compared with those watching for 0 to 2 hours. Estimates of attributable risk indicate that more 60% of overweight incidence in this population can be linked to excess television viewing time.Conclusion:
Television viewing affects overweight among youth, and reductions in viewing time could help prevent this increasingly common chronic health condition.(Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1996;150:356-362)
Most interactionist literature dealing with the creation of deviance focuses on one of two major areas: acquisition of a deviant identity and coping with a deviant identity. In the present paper, we explore the coping strategies used by members of a national weight control organization to deal with the devalued character of obesity. Data were gathered using the “triangulation” of direct observation, structured and unstructured interviews, and personal experience. We found five generic coping strategies used by our respondents. We call them: (1) Avoidance, (2) Compliance, (3) Reaction Formation, (4) Compensation, and (5) Accounts.
The purpose of this article is to examine the contribution made by the self-efficacy component of Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory to the study of self-regulation and motivation in academic settings. The difference between self-efficacy beliefs and other expectancy constructs is first explained, followed by a brief overview of problems in self-efficacy research. Findings on the relationship between self-efficacy, motivation constructs, and academic performances are then summarized. These findings demonstrate that particularized measures of self-efficacy that correspond to the criterial tasks with which they are compared surpass global measures in the explanation and prediction of related outcomes. The conceptual difference between the definition and use of expectancy beliefs in social cognitive theory and in expectancy value and self-concept theory is then clarified. Last, strategies to guide future research are offered.
Interviews with 30 extremely overweight nine to ten year old children in the United Kingdom offer perspectives on the challenges they face. Schools can make positive contributions by fostering climates of mutual respect and helping these children develop a positive outlook and sense of self-worth. (Author/MKA)
This chapter considers the process of identity negotiation (IN), a process that characterizes most social identity dynamics much of the time and that is a critical element in analyzing how targets respond to prejudice. We focus on a particular set of conditions that prompt IN, specifically those situations in which a person is potentially the target of prejudice and discrimination because of a particular identification (either categorically imposed by others or claimed by the self). Several themes are emphasized. First, we adopt the framework of social identification. Second, we focus on the dynamics of IN, regarding it as an agentic process in which people actively define the self and communicate their claimed identities to others. Third, we recognize that people function in varying contexts.
We review the major strategies that people use to negotiate their identities and consider some of the circumstances that prompt those negotiations. We examine threat and stigmatization as specific instigating conditions. We present an illustrative case study of Hispanic students entering elite universities, a context that provides examples of prejudice, perceived threats, and IN. A model of IN in response to stigmatization is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The purpose of this study was to extend to young children the application of semantic differential procedures in the identification of body build stereotypes. Kindergarten through fourth grade children (N = 368) rated thin, average, and chubby body build drawings of children using 12 bipolar adjectives. Multiple discriminant analysis revealed three distinct body build stereotypes represented by two statistically significant functions. Data supported an unfavorable perception of the chubby body build stereotype and a favorable perception of the average body build. The thin stereotype emerged as a combination of the socially desirable traits identified with the average build stereotype and the negative physical capability traits associated with the chubby build stereotype. Subsequent gender by grade by stereotype analyses of variance showed gender differences for the thin body stereotype, revealing a more positive view of the socially desirable traits of the thin stereotype by girls than by boys. Follow-up contrasts and trend analyses by grade indicated that the thin stereotype remains constant across age while the unfavorable perception of the chubby stereotype appears between first and second grade. The socially desirable traits of the average stereotype become less distinct with age.
ABSTRACT We review prior evidence—and present data of our own—linking measures of adaptational style to the traits comprising the five-factor model of personality. Neuroticism has been studied most extensively and is consistently associated with passive and ineffective coping mechanisms. Conscientiousness has emerged as an equally powerful predictor of coping; however, it is related to active, problem-focused response strategies. Extraversion is less broadly related to coping but tends to be correlated with social support seeking, positive reappraisal, and problem-focused coping. Openness is largely unrelated to many traditional coping inventories, but appears to reflect a more flexible, imaginative, and intellectually curious approach to problem solving. Finally, Agreeableness is only modestly related to coping. These results demonstrate the value of using well-articulated taxonomic schemes as a framework for trait-based research.
The perceived controllability of weight is a central feature of prejudice against heavyweight people, but its role in the experience of prejudice is not well established. Heavyweight women (N=66, mean age = 38 years) were exposed to information about cardiovascular health or the uncontrollability of weight and then wrote a persuasive health-related essay. All participants received a negative evaluation on the essay quality from a male evaluator whom they believed could see them or not. Belief in the uncontrollability of weight led to more attributions for the feedback to the evaluator's prejudice but only when the participants thought that they were visible. The results are discussed in terms of the stigma of overweight.
The existence of negative attitudes toward overweight body builds is demonstrated in two groups of preschool children aged 3 to 5 years (ns = 30 and 83), using four different measures of body size stigmatism. Although this stigmatism was stronger in the older children, it was clearly present in the 3 year olds. There was little support for the position that stigmatism would be greater for out-group members. Rather, the cultural stereotype that ‘fat is bad’ was pervasive across gender, regardless of the child's own body build. In fact, overweight preschoolers demonstrated stronger stigmatism than did those who were not overweight. The findings suggest that efforts to counteract body size stigmatism should begin in the early preschool years.
This study examined the effects of self-perceived problem-solving ability on the stress and coping processes as theorized by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Using a prospective design, 141 undergraduates completed questionnaires in 2-week intervals that measured recent stressful encounters, the cognitive appraisal of each particular event, and subsequent coping strategies. Self-perceived problem-solving ability was measured at Time 1. It was predicted that self-perceived effective problem solvers would consistently see less threat (primary appraisal), perceive more options for coping (secondary appraisal), and use more problem-focused and less emotion-foucsed coping strategies than self-perceived ineffective problem solvers. Results of separate 2 × 2 repeated-measures MANOVAs supported predictions regarding problem solving and coping, but not those regarding cognitive appraisal. These findings are discussed in regard to theoretical notions of self-perceived problem-solving ability and transactional models of stress appraisal and coping.
Recent studies have documented an increasing prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity in the United States. These increases will likely result in increased adult obesity because of the tracking of fatness from adolescence into adulthood and the tendency for adults in the United States to become obese as they age. We have identified television viewing as a strong risk factor for childhood and adolescent obesity. Television viewing is associated with both the onset of obesity and a decrease in the remission of obesity and acts by decreasing activity levels and possibly influencing diet. Logistic regressions also document associations between television viewing and obesity among adults. These relationships are greater than those estimated between measures of vigorous physical activity and obesity and indicate the importance of inactivity, to which television viewing contributes substantially. Population dietary intake data indicated no statistically significant change and perhaps some decrease in mean energy intake among children and youth during the same period that obesity was increasing. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that decreases in activity reduce lean body mass and lower energy requirements. We conclude that multiple intervention approaches involving diet, exercise, and restriction of television viewing and other sedentary activities all appear necessary to halt the fattening of America.
Historically, coping has been viewed as a response to emotion. Our purpose here is to evaluate this idea and offer a broader view based on cognitive and relational principles concerning the emotion process. We will explore the ways emotion and coping influence each other in what must ultimately be seen as a dynamic, mutually reciprocal relationship.
Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion--that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation--extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures--which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges' attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination.
Attributing negative outcomes to prejudice and discrimination may protect the mood and self-esteem of some stigmatized groups. Thus, the overweight may be low in self-esteem because they blame their weight, but not the attitudes of others, for negative outcomes based on their weight. In an experiment, 27 overweight and 31 normal weight college women received either positive or negative social feedback from a male evaluator. Relative to other groups, overweight women who received negative feedback attributed the feedback to their weight but did not blame the evaluator for his reaction. This attributional pattern resulted in more negative mood for these overweight women in comparison with other groups. Dimensions of stigma that may account for differences in the tendency to attribute negative outcomes to prejudice, and implications of these findings for weight loss programs and psychotherapy for the overweight, are discussed.
This article introduces the Journal of Personality's special issue on coping and personality. It first presents a historical overview of the psychological study of how people cope with stress and identifies three generations of theory and research: (a) the psychoanalysts and the ego development school, which tended to equate personality and coping strategies; (b) the transactional approach, which appeared in the 1960s and emphasized situational and cognitive influences on coping while downplaying the role of individual differences; and (c) the most recent, "third generation," whose work is represented in this special issue and focuses on the role of personality in coping while maintaining strong operational distinctions among coping, personality, appraisal, and adaptational outcomes. This introduction concludes with a discussion of unresolved conceptual and methodological issues and a brief orientation to the third-generation articles that follow in this special issue.
A theoretical model of parental socialization of children's coping behavior is described and tested with 310 elementary school children (M age = 10.5 years). Mothers and fathers reported on the coping suggestions they made to their children, their own coping strategies, and their perceptions of the family environment. Children reported on their relationships with their parents and on their usual coping behavior. Children's coping efforts were associated with family environment, the quality of the parent-child relationship, parent's own coping, and parent coping suggestions, though these relationships differed by gender and were quite specific. Maternal data were more strongly associated with children's coping than paternal data, and active and support coping were predicted more successfully than avoidance strategies. Analyses supported a model of direct, rather than mediated, effects on children's coping. There was modest support for the interactive effects of maternal coaching and modeling on girls' active coping and boys' avoidant coping.
To compare weight-specific and global psychosocial concerns and health-compromising behaviors among overweight and nonoverweight youth across gender and ethnicity.
A cross-sectional school-based survey of 31,122 adolescents in grades 7 to 12. Based on self-reported heights and weights, respondents were categorized as nonoverweight (body mass index (BMI) < 85th percentile), moderately overweight (85th percentile < BMI < 95th percentile), or severely overweight (BMI > 95th percentile).
Global psychosocial concerns, such as emotional well-being, suicidal ideation, future job concerns, and peer concerns, did not differ greatly between nonoverweight, moderately overweight, and severely overweight adolescents. Substance abuse behaviors were equally or less prevalent among the overweight group. Overweight girls were significantly less likely to consume alcohol, whereas overweight boys were at lower risk for marijuana use. In contrast, overweight youth were more likely to perceive their health as only fair or poor and were more likely to express weight-specific concerns and engage in behaviors such as chronic dieting and binge eating than nonoverweight youth. Overweight American Indian girls perceived their physical health more positively than nonoverweight American Indian girls. Strong associations were found between overweight status and chronic dieting among African American boys and girls.
Nutritional counseling and educational programs need to address the weight-specific concerns and behaviors of overweight adolescents. However, assumptions regarding global psychosocial concerns and health-compromising behaviors among overweight adolescents of different genders and ethnicities should be avoided. These broad issues need to be explored in more depth at both the research and intervention levels.
In this study, beliefs of the cause and effect of weight were examined in a sample of 9- to 11-year-old clinically overweight children. Lower self-esteem was found in the children who believed they are responsible for their overweight as compared to those who attributed their overweight to an external cause. Lower self-esteem was also found in the children who believed that their overweight hinders their social interaction. Other evidence gathered here lends some support to the view that the overweight child is more vulnerable to low self-esteem. The negative experiences in school and at home that the children reported and the premise that childhood obesity is a stigmatising condition is discussed.
To explore how African-American and Caucasian adolescent girls describe weight-related stigmatization experiences and their responses to these experiences.
Fifty girls from five urban Midwest high schools participated in the study (mean age 16.1 years, mean body mass index 33.6). The girls participated in clinical research interviews, which were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded.
All but two of the participants described stigmatizing experiences, the most frequently reported of which were direct and intentional, such as name calling and teasing. Hurtful comments and behaviors by family members and peers which appeared to be less intentional were also described by study participants. Responses to these experiences varied both within and across interviews and included ignoring or attempting to ignore hurtful experiences, feeling hurt, and getting mad.
The results stress the importance of discussing issues of stigmatization and responses to these hurtful experiences with overweight youth within clinical and educational settings. Furthermore, family members, teachers, and nonoverweight peers need to increase their awareness of the impact of their remarks on and behavior toward overweight youth within a society that values thinness.
To create inventories of stigmatizing situations faced by obese people and ways of coping with stigmatization, and to examine how stigma and coping are related to psychological distress in an obese patient population.
Study 1: Items were generated by asking obese people to list stigmatizing situations they had encountered and their ways of coping. Study 2: Obese patients were surveyed about the frequency with which they encountered each form of stigmatization and employed each form of coping. Cross-sectional data on current psychological adjustment were obtained.
Study 1: 63 obese patients (body mass index, BMI > 40 kg/m2); 38 obese non-patients, seven professionals who work with obese patients and 32 obese female authors from the print media. Study 2: 112 gastric bypass patients (BMI 33.9-80.9 kg/m2) and 34 less obese patients (BMI 27.1-57.2 kg/m2).
Study 1: Collection of stigmatizing situations and coping responses. Study 2: Frequency of stigmatizing experiences and coping responses, psychological symptoms, body image, and self esteem measures.
Study 1 resulted in two objective questionnaires, consisting of 50 situations and 99 responses. Study 2 found that stigmatization is a common experience, and that obese subjects frequently engage in some effort to cope with stigma. More frequent exposure to stigmatization was associated with greater psychological distress, more attempts to cope, and more severe obesity. Certain coping strategies are associated with greater distress.
This article reviews information on discriminatory attitudes and behaviors against obese individuals, integrates this to show whether systematic discrimination occurs and why, and discusses needed work in the field. Clear and consistent stigmatization, and in some cases discrimination, can be documented in three important areas of living: employment, education, and health care. Among the findings are that 28% of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a person; 24% of nurses said that they are "repulsed" by obese persons; and, controlling for income and grades, parents provide less college support for their overweight than for their thin children. There are also suggestions but not yet documentation of discrimination occurring in adoption proceedings, jury selection, housing, and other areas. Given the vast numbers of people potentially affected, it is important to consider the research-related, educational, and social policy implications of these findings.
To compare overweight and non-overweight youth on a selection of self-reported eating, physical activity, dieting, educational, and emotional variables and identify familial factors that serve as protective forces against unhealthy behaviors and psychosocial difficulties among overweight adolescents.
Data were taken from a 1996 cross-sectional school-based survey of 9957 adolescents in grades 7, 9, and 11. Based on self-reported heights and weights, respondents were categorized as "overweight" (body mass index) > or =85th percentile or "non-overweight." Student's t-tests were used to compare the non-overweight and overweight sample on the self-reported health-related behaviors and psychosocial variables. Logistic and linear regressions were used to identify familial factors associated with a reduced risk of engaging in unhealthy behaviors and experiencing psychosocial distress.
Overweight adolescents reported engaging in significantly more unhealthy behaviors and experiencing more psychosocial distress than their non-overweight peers. Among the overweight youth, higher levels of reported family connectedness and parental expectations and moderate levels of parental monitoring were associated with the lowest levels of unhealthy behaviors and psychosocial distress.
Satisfying and developmentally appropriate parent-adolescent relationships are associated with reduced behavioral and psychosocial risk factors associated with overweight during adolescence.
One in 7 US children and adolescents is obese, yet little is known about their health-related quality of life (QOL).
To examine the health-related QOL of obese children and adolescents compared with children and adolescents who are healthy or those diagnosed as having cancer.
Cross-sectional study of 106 children and adolescents (57 males) between the ages of 5 and 18 years (mean [SD], 12.1 [3] years), who had been referred to an academic children's hospital for evaluation of obesity between January and June 2002. Children and adolescents had a mean (SD) body mass index (BMI) of 34.7 (9.3) and BMI z score of 2.6 (0.5).
Child self-report and parent proxy report using a pediatric QOL inventory generic core scale (range, 0-100). The inventory was administered by an interviewer for children aged 5 through 7 years. Scores were compared with previously published scores for healthy children and adolescents and children and adolescents diagnosed as having cancer.
Compared with healthy children and adolescents, obese children and adolescents reported significantly (P<.001) lower health-related QOL in all domains (mean [SD] total score, 67 [16.3] for obese children and adolescents; 83 [14.8] for healthy children and adolescents). Obese children and adolescents were more likely to have impaired health-related QOL than healthy children and adolescents (odds ratio [OR], 5.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.4-8.7) and were similar to children and adolescents diagnosed as having cancer (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.8-2.3). Children and adolescents with obstructive sleep apnea reported a significantly lower health-related QOL total score (mean [SD], 53.8 [13.3]) than obese children and adolescents without obstructive sleep apnea (mean [SD], 67.9 [16.2]). For parent proxy report, the child or adolescent's BMI z score was significantly inversely correlated with total score (r = -0.246; P =.01), physical functioning (r = -0.263; P<.01), social functioning (r = -0.347; P<.001), and psychosocial functioning (r = -0.209; P =.03).
Severely obese children and adolescents have lower health-related QOL than children and adolescents who are healthy and similar QOL as those diagnosed as having cancer. Physicians, parents, and teachers need to be informed of the risk for impaired health-related QOL among obese children and adolescents to target interventions that could enhance health outcomes.
Overweight is the most common health problem that faces children and adolescents. Although the correlation among overweight, low self-esteem, and depression is well known, social isolation among overweight children and adolescents has not been studied.
To investigate social networks of overweight and normal-weight adolescents in a large, nationally representative sample.
Cross-sectional, nationally representative cohort study. Population A total of 90 118 adolescents aged 13 to 18 years who were enrolled in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, of which a 1:5 subsample was selected for detailed in-home assessment, including height and weight measurements (n = 17 557). Overweight was defined according to body mass index (>95th percentile for age and sex).
This analysis focuses on the number of friendship nominations each adolescent received from other adolescents. The number of friendship nominations and other social network measures were calculated using statistical software.
Overweight adolescents were more likely to be socially isolated and to be peripheral to social networks than were normal-weight adolescents. Although overweight adolescents listed similar numbers of friends as normal-weight adolescents, overweight adolescents received significantly fewer friendship nominations from others than were received by normal-weight adolescents (mean [SE] number of friendship nominations, 3.39 [0.08] vs 4.79 [0.04]; P<.001). Overweight adolescents were also more likely to receive no friendship nominations than were normal-weight adolescents (odds ratio, 1.71; 95% confidence interval, 1.39-2.20). Decreased television viewing (P<.001), increased levels of sports participation (P<.001), and increased participation in school clubs (P<.001) were associated with significantly more friendship nominations and higher network centrality scores among both overweight and normal-weight adolescents.
Many overweight adolescents are socially marginalized. Such isolation may aggravate the social and emotional consequences of overweight in this age group.
Verbal harassment, such as bullying and hate speech, has received considerable attention recently, but less is known about weight-based teasing and its potential harmful effects on young people's psychosocial well-being.
To determine the associations of weight-based teasing and body satisfaction, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts using a large sample of adolescents.
Secondary analysis of survey and anthropometric data.
Ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities in the urban and suburban school districts of the Minneapolis/St Paul metropolitan area.
A school-based sample of 4746 adolescents in grades 7 to 12 at 31 public middle schools and high schools.
Weight-based teasing from peers or family members, body satisfaction, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.
Of the eligible students, 81.5% participated; 30.0% of adolescent girls and 24.7% of adolescent boys were teased by peers, and 28.7% of adolescent girls and 16.1% of adolescent boys were teased by family members. Approximately 14.6% of adolescent girls and 9.6% of adolescent boys reported teasing from both of these sources. Teasing about body weight was consistently associated with low body satisfaction, low self-esteem, high depressive symptoms, and thinking about and attempting suicide, even after controlling for actual body weight. These associations held for adolescent boys and girls, across racial, ethnic, and weight groups. Furthermore, teasing from 2 sources was associated with a higher prevalence of emotional health problems than either teasing from a single source or no teasing.
Physicians and other health care providers should recognize the importance of weight-based teasing for young patients. Policy, programs, and education should focus on increasing awareness of what constitutes weight-based teasing, its potentially harmful effects on adolescents' emotional well-being, and reduction of this behavior.