Symposium 20 - Understanding and Dismantling Weight Stigma

Chair(s)

• HF

  Hannah Fitterman-Harris, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  University of Louisville
  Louisville, Kentucky

Discussant(s)

• 

  Carolyn Becker, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  Professor
  Trinity University
  San Antonio, Texas

Presenter(s)

• HF

  Hannah Fitterman-Harris, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  University of Louisville
  Louisville, Kentucky
• EH

  Erin Harrop, Ph.D., LICSW (they/them/theirs)

  Assistant Professor
  University of Denver
  Aurora, Colorado
• 

  Savannah Hooper, B.A. (she/her/hers)

  Graduate Student
  University of Louisville
  San Antonio, Texas
• LB

  Lisa Brownstone, Ph.D. (she/they)

  University of Denver
  Denver, Colorado

Weight stigma encompasses negative attitudes, stereotypes, and discrimination toward higher weight individuals (Lee et al., 2014), as well as structural systems of oppression (Hatzenbuehler, 2016). Weight stigma has substantial health effects (Alberga et al., 2019; Daly et al., 2019; Puhl & Heuer, 2009) and is associated with disordered eating (Vartanian & Porter, 2016) and internalized weight stigma (Puhl et al., 2018). Weight stigma is ubiquitous, including within healthcare (i.e., medical and mental health care; Darling & Atav, 2019; Kinavey & Cool, 2019; Puhl & Heuer, 2009), where it can have unique effects such as healthcare avoidance and poor-quality healthcare (Alberga et al., 2019). To reduce weight stigma in these influential settings, it is critical to understand the ways in which weight stigma is experienced by patients and develop instruments to accurately measure this stigma. We must then develop and implement interventions to reduce weight stigma toward higher weight individuals and reduce internalized weight stigma by higher weight individuals to improve the health, well-being, and quality of care provided to this population.
            Dr. Hannah Fitterman-Harris will share findings on the development and psychometric testing of a new instrument designed specifically to assess weight stigma among healthcare providers. This instrument, the Weight Bias in Healthcare Scale, includes a subscale to assess for social desirability (overly favorable responding) to improve accuracy in measuring weight stigma. Dr. Erin Harrop will discuss results of a thematic analysis on mental health trainees’ perspectives on understanding and unlearning weight stigma through enrollment in a weight stigma elective course within a professional training program. Ms. Savannah Hooper will present data regarding patient-reported experiences of weight stigma in healthcare settings, as well as consequences of these experiences (e.g., internalized weight stigma, eating disorder pathology, depressive symptoms). Dr. Lisa Brownstone will present results from a study involving psychotherapy groups targeting internalized weight stigma among patients in an eating disorder treatment program. Dr. Brownstone will present initial outcome data from the groups, as well as discuss different treatment settings in which these groups can be integrated. Dr. Carolyn Becker will integrate the presentations and discuss the implications of the research on dismantling weight stigma and internalized weight stigma.