Magallares Alejandro, Jauregui-Lobera Ignacio, Carbonero-Carreño Rocio, Ruiz-Prieto Inmaculada, Bolaños-Ríos Patricia, Cano-Escoriaza Asuncion
Social Psychology Department, Spanish Open University (UNED), Madrid, Spain.
Pablo de Olavide University, Carretera de Utrera s/n, 41013, Seville, Spain.
Eat Weight Disord. 2015 Dec;20(4):483-9. doi: 10.1007/s40519-015-0220-1. Epub 2015 Sep 29.
Perceived vulnerability to disease (beliefs about personal susceptibility to contracting an infectious disease) is usually related to the expression of prejudice towards different stigmatized groups. In this study, the relationship between this variable and the expression of the prejudice towards obese people was analyzed.
The sample comprised a total of 137 children and teenagers, aged between 12 and 17 years, from a Spanish high school who fulfilled several scales which measure perceived vulnerability to disease, antifat attitudes and perceived controllability of weight. Additionally, body mass index (BMI) was calculated by means of the participants' height and weight.
Perceived infectability (one of the factors of the perceived vulnerability to disease scale) was negatively related to controllability of weight, and germ aversion (the second factor of the vulnerability scale), showed a positive relationship with the antipathy towards obese people. Finally, perceived controllability of weight was positively correlated with BMI.
The implications of these results in the field of the study of the prejudice toward obese people are discussed. To our knowledge, no other studies have investigated the relationship between perceived vulnerability to disease and antifat attitudes in minors. Additionally, this is the first time that the measured BMI has been used instead of the self-reported one.
感知到的疾病易感性（关于个人感染传染病易感性的信念）通常与对不同受污名化群体的偏见表达有关。在本研究中，分析了这一变量与对肥胖者偏见表达之间的关系。
样本包括来自西班牙一所高中的137名儿童和青少年，年龄在12至17岁之间，他们完成了几个量表，这些量表测量了感知到的疾病易感性、反肥胖态度和体重的感知可控性。此外，通过参与者的身高和体重计算身体质量指数（BMI）。
感知易感染性（疾病易感性量表的因素之一）与体重可控性呈负相关，而对细菌的厌恶（易感性量表的第二个因素）与对肥胖者的反感呈正相关。最后，体重的感知可控性与BMI呈正相关。
讨论了这些结果在肥胖者偏见研究领域中的意义。据我们所知，没有其他研究调查过未成年人感知到的疾病易感性与反肥胖态度之间的关系。此外，这是首次使用测量得到的BMI而非自我报告的BMI。
