We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Obesity in the news: do photographic images of obese persons influence antifat attitudes?
- Authors
McClure, Kimberly J; Puhl, Rebecca M; Heuer, Chelsea A
- Abstract
News coverage of obesity has increased dramatically in recent years, and research shows that media content may contribute to negative public attitudes toward obese people. However, no work has assessed whether photographic portrayals of obese people that accompany news stories affect attitudes. In the present study, the authors used a randomized experimental design to test whether viewing photographic portrayals of an obese person in a stereotypical or unflattering way (versus a nonstereotypical or flattering portrayal) could increase negative attitudes about obesity, even when the content of an accompanying news story is neutral. The authors randomly assigned 188 adult participants to read a neutral news story about the prevalence of obesity that was paired with 1 of 4 photographic portrayals of an obese adult (or no photograph). The authors subsequently assessed attitudes toward obese people using the Fat Phobia Scale. Participants in all conditions expressed a moderate level of fat phobia (M = 3.83, SD = 0.58). Results indicated that participants who viewed the negative photographs expressed more negative attitudes toward obese people than did those who viewed the positive photographs. Implications of these findings for the media are discussed, with emphasis on increasing awareness of weight bias in health communication and journalistic news reporting.
- Publication
Journal of health communication, 2011, Vol 16, Issue 4, p359
- ISSN
1087-0415
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1080/10810730.2010.535108