Weight Stigma

In Curl’s and Brown’s article, “Weight Stigma and Psychological Distress: a Moderated Mediation Model of Social Identification and Internalized Bias”, the broad question is: what is the link between weight stigma and well-being?  The specific question is: what is the mediating role of social identification in the relationship between perceived weight stigma and psychological distress in a community sample of higher weight Australian Adults. 

There are a few theories as play here that have influenced this question.  The first, is that there is a larger theory at play here that states there is a link between perceived weight stigma and psychological stress and negative emotions.  Digging a little bit deeper is looking at what exactly is perceived weight stigma.  This is the feelings expressed by an individual, that they have experienced unkind or unfair treatment because of their weight or size.  The weight-based social identity model even theorizes how individuals of a higher weight class can often experiences apprehensions about weight stigma that will occur in the future.  Curl and Brown state that previous studies, internalized weight bias has shown it could be a factor that influences an individual’s quality of life, exercise avoidance, and health motivation. 

While there is a lack of evidence to substantially conclude that internalized bias is a mediator in mental health, the authors turned to the theory of the social identity approach to health or “the social cure” which aims to explain more about how being part of certain social groups can impact an individual’s mental health.  The authors also use the rejection-identification model to help propose their experiment.  In the RIM model, groups who are often times marginalized, feel a sense of shared identity which can also lead to shared support.  Groups such as women, older adults, and racial minorities have all shown to experience a sense of social identity.  Some groups however, such as individuals with mental illness and ex-prisoners, do not experience the same kind of shared support. 

The conceptual model includes perceived stigma as the independent variable, psychological distress as the dependent variable, social identification as the mediating variable and internalized bias as the moderating variable. 

Perceived stigma was measured by asking participants to answer questions using a 5-item scale based on the Everyday Discrimination Scale.  Social Identification was measured by asking participants to answer a 5- factor Group Identification Scale.  Internalized bias was measured by asking participants to assess themselves on the Weight Bias Internalization Scale.  Psychological distress was measured by asking participants to answer the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale.   

There was a direct relationship between perceived stigma and psychological distress with a statistically significant indirect effect of social identification as the mediating variable.  This means that higher levels of perceived stigma was associated with higher levels of distress.   The mediating variable, social identification and the moderating variable, internalized bias had a significant effect.  This means that social identification can offset the negative effects of perceived stigma on psychological distress.  The authors state that there is a possibility that increasing an individual’s social identification, or strengthening an individual’s feeling of belonging to a group that it may be possible to decrease distress when that same individual also is not highly effected by internalized weight bias.  This gives some possible solutions for helping individuals who are experiencing stigma due to their weight or possibly helping prevent individuals who are living in larger bodies, from experiencing harmful, negative mental health struggles.

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