Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, USA.
Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Sep;237:112399. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112399. Epub 2019 Jul 10.
Weight stigma is prevalent in Western society and has numerous negative effects on people with obesity. There remains a strong and currently unmet need to understand why anti-fat attitudes are tenacious and what intervention strategies might best produce lasting attitude change.
Many negative effects of weight stigma can be integrated by noting that people differ in the extent to which they see obesity as a moral failing. Drawing from moral psychology and weight stigma literature, we hypothesized that greater moral disapproval of obesity would be linked to greater control attributions and disgust towards obese people, stronger endorsement of discrimination, perception of greater health risks associated with obesity, resistance to attitude change, and negative perceptions of people who have bariatric surgery.
Three studies were conducted with U.S.-based online samples in 2017-2018, and were analyzed with correlational, analysis of variance, and linear regression models.
In Study 1, greater moralization of obesity predicted stronger belief in the controllability of obesity, greater disgust towards obese people, stronger endorsement of discrimination against obese individuals, and the perception of greater health risks associated with obesity. In Study 2, people with stronger moralized obesity attitudes rated arguments for classifying obesity as a disease as less convincing, demonstrating that moralized obesity attitudes are more resistant to persuasion than nonmoral attitudes. In Study 3, greater moralization predicted more negative responses to an individual who had bariatric surgery, even when the individual exerted strong diet and exercise-related effort to make the surgery successful.
A moral view of obesity explains why control attributions and disgust are essential components of weight stigma, and why antifat attitudes are resistant to change. We conclude with suggestions for future research and consideration of the implications of obesity moralization for other chronic health conditions.
体重歧视在西方社会普遍存在，对肥胖人群有许多负面影响。人们强烈且目前尚未得到满足的需求是，了解为什么反肥胖态度如此顽固，以及哪些干预策略最有可能产生持久的态度改变。
通过指出人们对肥胖的看法存在差异，可以将体重歧视的许多负面影响整合在一起。从道德心理学和体重歧视文献中，我们假设对肥胖的更大道德反感将与对肥胖者的更大控制归因和厌恶、对歧视的更强支持、对肥胖相关健康风险的更大感知、对态度改变的抵制以及对接受减肥手术的人的负面看法联系起来。
2017 年至 2018 年，在美国进行了三项基于在线样本的研究，并使用相关分析、方差分析和线性回归模型进行了分析。
在研究 1 中，对肥胖的更大道德化预测了更强的肥胖可控制性信念、对肥胖者的更大厌恶、对歧视肥胖者的更强支持以及对肥胖相关健康风险的更大感知。在研究 2 中，具有更强道德化肥胖态度的人认为将肥胖归类为疾病的论点不太有说服力，这表明道德化肥胖态度比非道德态度更难以被说服。在研究 3 中，更大的道德化预测了对接受减肥手术的个体的更负面反应，即使该个体为使手术成功而付出了强烈的饮食和运动相关努力。
对肥胖的道德看法解释了为什么控制归因和厌恶是体重歧视的基本组成部分，以及为什么反肥胖态度难以改变。我们最后提出了未来研究的建议，并考虑了肥胖道德化对其他慢性健康状况的影响。
