Naanai Habiba, Vartanian Lenny R
School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
J Behav Med. 2025 Apr;48(2):308-316. doi: 10.1007/s10865-024-00535-w. Epub 2024 Dec 4.
The dominant public health narrative equates excess weight with poor health, and previous research has demonstrated that people judge adults with higher body weights as being in poor health, even when they engage in healthy lifestyles. The present study investigated whether the same pattern of beliefs holds for perceptions of children's health. Participants (n = 445) viewed the health profile of a female child that varied in terms of weight status (normal weight, obese), health behaviors (good, poor), and age (younger, older), and then rated the child's overall health and indicated their agreement with suggested behavior recommendations. For older children, targets with obesity were perceived as less healthy and were recommended to engage in more healthy and weight control behaviors than were the targets with normal weight. Health behaviors did influence perceptions of health and behavioral recommendations, but much less so for the target with obesity than for the target with normal weight. For younger children, participants placed a greater emphasis on health behaviors than on weight in their perceptions of the target's health and healthy behavior recommendations, but the target's weight did play a greater role in weight-control behavior recommendations. Overall, perceptions of older children reflect the mainstream weight-centric health beliefs that are perpetuated in public health messaging, whereas perceptions of younger children seem to be more aligned with the scientific evidence supporting the importance of health behaviors to overall health. Public health messaging, particularly messaging targeting parents, should be reframed to focus on the importance of engagement with health behaviors without reference to weight.
主流的公共卫生观念将超重与健康不佳划等号，先前的研究表明，人们会认为体重较高的成年人健康状况不佳，即便他们保持着健康的生活方式。本研究调查了在对儿童健康的认知方面，是否也存在同样的观念模式。参与者（n = 445）查看了一名女童的健康档案，该档案在体重状况（正常体重、肥胖）、健康行为（良好、不佳）和年龄（较小、较大）方面有所不同，然后对该儿童的整体健康状况进行评分，并表明他们对建议的行为建议的认同程度。对于年龄较大的儿童，肥胖的对象被认为健康程度较低，与正常体重的对象相比，他们被建议采取更多健康和体重控制行为。健康行为确实会影响对健康的认知和行为建议，但对于肥胖对象的影响远小于对正常体重对象的影响。对于年龄较小的儿童，参与者在对目标对象的健康认知和健康行为建议中，更强调健康行为而非体重，但目标对象的体重在体重控制行为建议中确实起到了更大的作用。总体而言，对年龄较大儿童的认知反映了公共卫生信息中持续存在的以体重为中心的主流健康观念，而对年龄较小儿童的认知似乎更符合支持健康行为对整体健康重要性的科学证据。公共卫生信息，尤其是针对家长的信息，应重新构建，以关注参与健康行为的重要性，而不提及体重。
