Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, College of Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA.
College of Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA.
Psychol Health. 2022 Sep;37(9):1093-1110. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2021.1921179. Epub 2021 May 12.
The aim of this study was to describe people's day-to-day experiences with weight-based discrimination and to distill themes that shed new light on this phenomenon.
A qualitative study was conducted in 2019 using a purposive sampling strategy. A racially and ethnically diverse sample of 32 U.S. adult men and women with a body mass index ≥30 kg/m completed a semi-structured interview.
Primary types of interpersonal weight-based discrimination included offensive comments, negative assumptions, social rejection, and unwanted attention or bullying. Participants also encountered environmental sources of weight bias such as inadequate seating in public venues. Three higher order themes that cut across people's experiences with weight-based discrimination were identified: 1) the often-ambiguous nature of weight-based discrimination; 2) intersections between body weight and other social identities; and 3) the role of social comparison processes.
Findings provide a detailed portrait of people's everyday experiences with weight-based discrimination. These experiences often reflected widely held negative stereotypes about people with higher body weight and conveyed the socially devalued status of higher-weight individuals in society. Findings have important implications for future research and interventions aimed at reducing the harmful effects of weight-based discrimination on health and emotional wellbeing.
本研究旨在描述人们日常生活中所经历的体重歧视，并提炼出一些主题，从而深入了解这一现象。
这是一项于 2019 年开展的定性研究，采用了目的性抽样策略。研究纳入了 32 名美国成年男女，他们的体重指数≥30kg/m2，种族和民族背景多样化，完成了半结构化访谈。
人际间体重歧视的主要类型包括冒犯性言论、负面假设、社会排斥、不必要的关注或欺凌。参与者还遇到了体重偏见的环境来源，如公共场所座位不足。通过对人们体重歧视经历的分析，确定了三个贯穿始终的主题：1）体重歧视的性质常常模棱两可；2）体重与其他社会身份之间的交集；3）社会比较过程的作用。
研究结果详细描绘了人们日常生活中所经历的体重歧视。这些经历往往反映了人们对体重较高者的普遍负面刻板印象，也反映了社会对高体重者的贬低地位。研究结果对未来旨在减少体重歧视对健康和情感健康的有害影响的研究和干预措施具有重要意义。
