Lammers, Kristin (2023) Effects of Weight Loss Discourses on Fat People. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Fat people have been stigmatised because of their weight for many years. This stigma leads to consequences such as increased body shame, lower self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. In order to reduce fat stigma and discrimination against fat people, one has to understand what exactly is stigmatising. In the current study, we investigate whether different weight loss discourses can have different effects on fat people. Based on peripheral predictions, we hypothesise that body image satisfaction and self-esteem will be lowest among participants in the health discourse condition (e.g., when weight loss is discussed because it was done for health) followed by fitting-in (e.g., when weight loss is discussed because someone had physically fitting problems) and control. Similarly, we hypothesise that internalisation of stigma and depressive symptoms will be highest among participants in the health discourse condition followed by fitting-in and control. Our convenience sample consists of 298 obese female participants (with a BMI over 30) who completed online questionnaires after reading one of three randomly assigned "made-up" magazine articles about a fake celebrity's weightloss discourse. The analysis consists of four ANOVAs. The results show that no significant difference was found between the three conditions on the four dependent variables. The hypotheses could not be supported. Although our research does not provide significant results, this study suggests the importance of examining the impact of different weight loss discourses on fat people, given the stigma attached to fatness in many societies. Implications of this study are discussed. Keywords: weight loss discourse, fat stigma, fat people, body image satisfaction, selfesteem, internalized stigma, depressive symptoms, health discourse, fitting-in discourse
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Supervisor name: | Koc, Y. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Mar 2023 10:08 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Mar 2023 10:08 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1814 |
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