Weight bias among public health trainees.

Sonneville, Kendrin R; Rose, Kelsey L; Lambrecht, Nathalie J; Barry, Mikayla R; Weeks, Heidi M; Leung, Cindy W

Objective: To explore explicit beliefs about the controllability of obesity and the internalisation of negative weight-related stereotypes among public health trainees.Design: Cross-sectional online survey assessing explicit beliefs about the controllability of obesity using the Beliefs About Obese Persons Scale (BAOP) and internalisation of weight bias using the Modified Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS-M). Bivariate associations between BAOP and WBIS-M scores and demographic characteristics were examined using t tests or ANOVA with post hoc Tukey's tests.Setting: School of Public Health at a large, Midwestern University.Participants: Public health students (n 322).Results: Relative to students who identified as male, those who identified as female had a stronger belief that obesity is not within the control of the individual (P = 0·03), yet had more internalisation of weight bias (P Conclusions: Public health trainees may be more attuned to the complexities of weight relative to trainees in other health-related fields, but are still susceptible to internalisation of negative weight-related stereotypes.

MIDWESTERN University (Downers Grove, Ill.); STUDENT health; PUBLIC health; TUKEY'S test; OVERWEIGHT children; FOOD security; OVERWEIGHT persons

Public Health Nutrition, 2021, Vol 24, Issue 6, p1566

1368-9800

Academic Journal

10.1017/S1368980020004097