Obese individuals are highly stigmatized and face multiple forms of prejudice and discrimination because of their weight (1,2). The prevalence of weight discrimination in the United States has increased by 66% over the past decade (3), and is comparable to rates of racial discrimination, especially among women (4). Weight bias translates into inequities in employment settings, health-care facilities, and educational institutions, often due to widespread negative stereotypes that overweight and obese persons are lazy, unmotivated, lacking in selfdiscipline, less competent, noncompliant, and sloppy (2,5–7). These stereotypes are prevalent and are rarely challenged in Western society, leaving overweight and obese persons vulnerable to social injustice, unfair treatment, and impaired quality of life as a result of substantial disadvantages and stigma. In 2001, Puhl and Brownell published the first comprehensive review of several decades of research documenting bias and stigma toward overweight and obese persons (2). This review summarized weight stigma in domains of employment, health care, and education, demonstrating the vulnerability of obese persons to many forms of unfair treatment. Despite evidence of weight bias in important areas of living, the authors noted many gaps in research regarding the nature and extent of weight stigma in various settings, the lack of science on emotional and physical health consequences of weight bias, and the paucity of interventions to reduce negative stigma. In recent years, attention to weight bias has increased, with a growing recognition of the pervasiveness of weight bias and stigma, and its potential harmful consequences for obese persons. The aim of this article is to provide an update of scientific evidence on weight bias toward overweight and obese adults through a systematic review of published literature since the 2001 article by Puhl and Brownell. This review expands upon previous findings of weight bias in major domains of living, documents new areas where weight bias has been studied, and highlights ongoing research questions that need to be addressed to advance this field of study. A systematic literature search of studies published between January 2000 and May 2008 was undertaken on computerized psychological, medical, social science, sport, and education databases including PsycINFO, PubMed, SCOPUS, ERIC, and SPORTDiscus. The following keyword combinations were used: weight, obese, obesity, overweight, BMI, fat, fatness, size, heavy, large, appearance, big, heavyweight, bias, biased, discrimination, discriminatory, discriminate, stigma, stigmatized, stigmatization, prejudice, prejudicial, stereotype(s), stereotypical, stereotyping, victimization, victimize(d), blame(d), blaming, shame(d), shaming, teasing, tease(d), unfair, bully, bullying, harassment, assumptions, attributions, education, health, health care, sales, employment, wages, promotion, adoption, jury, customer service, housing, media, television. Reference lists of retrieved articles and books were also reviewed, and manual searches were conducted in the databases and journals for authors who had published in this field. Most studies retrieved for this review were published in the United States. Any articles published internationally are noted with their country of origin. Research on weight stigma in adolescents and children was excluded from this review, as this literature was recently reviewed elsewhere (8). Unpublished manuscripts and dissertations were also excluded. In addition, issues pertaining to measurement of weight stigmatization, and demographic variables affecting vulnerability to weight bias such as gender, age, race, and body weight are not addressed in this review. This article instead primarily reviews the evidence of specific areas where weight bias occurs toward adults and its consequences for those affected. This article is organized similarly to the first review published by Puhl and Brownell (2), with sections on weight bias in settings of employment, health care, and education. New sections have been added including weight bias in interpersonal relationships and the media, as well as psychological and physical health consequences of weight bias, and the status of stigma-reduction research. As with the 2001 article, this review also provides an update on legal initiatives to combat weight discrimination, and outlines specific questions for future research.

https://www.sochob.cl/pdf/obesidad_adulto/The%20Stigma%20of%20Obesity%20%20A%20Review%20and%20Update.pdf

The stigma of obesity: a review and update.

Stigma and discrimination toward obese persons are pervasive and pose numerous consequences for their psychological and physical health. Despite decades of science documenting weight stigma, its public health implications are widely ignored. Instead, obese persons are blamed for their weight, with common perceptions that weight stigmatization is justifiable and may motivate individuals to adopt healthier behaviors. We examine evidence to address these assumptions and discuss their public health implications. On the basis of current findings, we propose that weight stigma is not a beneficial public health tool for reducing obesity. Rather, stigmatization of obese individuals threatens health, generates health disparities, and interferes with effective obesity intervention efforts. These findings highlight weight stigma as both a social justice issue and a priority for public health.

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.2009.159491

Obesity Stigma: Important Considerations for Public Health

Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook. Yet, whether Facebook use influences subjective well-being over time is unknown. We addressed this issue using experience-sampling, the most reliable method for measuring in-vivo behavior and psychological experience. We text-messaged people five times per day for two-weeks to examine how Facebook use influences the two components of subjective well-being: how people feel moment-to-moment and how satisfied they are with their lives. Our results indicate that Facebook use predicts negative shifts on both of these variables over time. The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. Interacting with other people “directly” did not predict these negative outcomes. They were also not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.

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Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults.

VAN DIJK, TEUN A., News as Discourse Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1988. $29.95 cloth. This book attempts the development of a "new, interdisciplinary theory of news in the press" (p. vii). It represents a very ambitious and somewhat speculative effort to weave together a broad range of existing news research approaches into a coherent, heuristic framework. Van Dijk succeeds in providing a useful summary of the literature in news research. Especially valuable is his discussion of recent European research. However, the overall framework is still at an early stage of development. Its utility remains to be demonstrated by future research. For some time now, communication researchers have talked of passing paradigms and ferment in the field. With the decline of past paradigms, our discipline has been left with a hodgepodge of small-scale theories. This is particularly true in the area of news research where various narrative, discourse and information processing theories abound. Van Dijk's book may signal a new era, an era in which efforts will be made to integrate existing conceptual fragments into broader frameworks. His work may be seen as providing a model for others who seek to make sense of our current proliferation of theories. Van Dijk's approach is centered in the tradition of discourse analysis, which evolved out of an integration of literary analysis and linguistics. However, he has aggressively modified earlier forms of discourse analysis in an effort to incorporate insights into the structure and interpretation of discourse derived from cognitive psychology. He is not content to simply apply discourse analysis to the evaluation of news stories. He recognizes the utility of constructing an approach which also considers the production of news by media practitioners and the interpretation of news by audience members. It is these broader concerns which set van Dijk's approach apart from previous analyses of news content. A central concept in van Dijk's theory is the notion of story schemas, which are defined as implicit structures that underlie typical stories. These schemas permit the easy production of news and also facilitate its interpretation by news consumers. The schema concept is at once powerful and ambiguous. There is growing research evidence that demonstrates the utility of positing the existence of cognitive structures (schemas) in people's minds which are activated by content cues and guide interpretion of all forms of communication. The schema concept helps to explain why complex and seemingly ambiguous messages often are easily interpreted by audience members. It also can explain why the same message can be interpreted in highly discrepent ways. If messages contain conflicting cues that lead people to activate different schemas, or if people don't share a homogeneous set of schemas, then it is likely that many contrasting interpretations of story content will be developed. But despite growing consensus concerning the utility of schema as a concept, researchers remain quite divided over both its definition and the type of research that will lead to the most useful findings. …

News as Discourse

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), fruit juice, and milk are components of diet of major public health interest. To-date, assessment of their global distributions and health impacts has been limited by insufficient comparable and reliable data by country, age, and sex.

/pdf/global-regional-and-national-consumption-of-sugar-sweetened-1us9w84m2h.pdf

Global, Regional, and National Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages, Fruit Juices, and Milk: A Systematic Assessment of Beverage Intake in 187 Countries.

Objective To examine whether television news and current affairs coverage of overweight and obesity frames obesity in ways that support or oppose efforts to combat obesity. Design and setting A content and framing analysis of a structured sample of 50 television news and current affairs items about overweight and obesity broadcast by five free-to-air television channels in New South Wales between 2 May and 31 October 2005. Main outcome measures Dominant discourses about causes of overweight and obesity; proposed solutions and location of responsibility for the problem; the age-group focus of television items; the relative prominence of stakeholders; and the aspects of obesity which attract news attention. Results Most television items (72%) framed obesity as a problem of poor nutrition. Obesity was largely seen as the responsibility of individuals (66% of items). Just over half of news items (52%) focused only on adults while 26% focused only on children. Obesity was framed largely as a problem to be solved by individual nutritional changes, exercise and surgical and medical interventions. Conclusions While individual lifestyle is crucial to controlling weight, the research community now recognises the importance of sociocultural and environmental factors as drivers of the obesity epidemic. However, television news portrays obesity largely as an individual problem with individual solutions centred mostly on nutrition. Media emphasis on personal responsibility and diet may detract attention from the sociopolitical and structural changes needed to tackle overweight and obesity at a population level.

/pdf/choice-and-voice-obesity-debates-in-television-news-4wettg47cx.pdf

Choice and voice: obesity debates in television news.

Cycling is important for health, transport, environmental and economic reasons. Newspaper reporting of cycling reflects and can influence public and policy maker attitudes towards resource allocation for cycling and cycling infrastructure, yet such coverage has not been systematically examined. The Factiva electronic news archive was searched for articles referring to cycling published in four major metropolitan newspapers - two in Sydney and two in Melbourne, Australia, in the years from 1998 until 2008. After excluding articles not about cycling, there were 61 articles published in 1998, 45 in 1999, 51 in 2003, 82 in 2007 and 87 in 2008. Each article was coded for positive or negative orientation, and for framing of cyclists and cycling. Inter-rater reliability was calculated on a sample of 30 articles. Over the past decade there has been an increase in the reporting of cycling in the major newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne (from 106 in 1998/99 to 169 stories in 2007/08), with a significant increase in reporting of cycling in Melbourne, from 49 to 103 stories (p = 0.04). Recent reporting of cycling was generally positive (47% of articles, compared with 30% of articles which were negative) and focused on benefits such as health and the environment. Three quarters of negative stories involved injury or death of a cyclist. The Sydney based The Daily Telegraph reported the most negative stories (n = 60). We found positive framing of 'cycling' was more widespread than negative, whereas framing of 'cyclists' was more negative than positive. Quantity of reporting of cycling varies over time and by newspaper, and even between newspapers in different cities owned by the same media company. News coverage appears to reflect developments in the different cities, with increases in positive reporting of cycling in Melbourne following increases in cycling in that city. Negative cycling newspaper stories may deter people from considering cycling as a transport option, but real physical or political improvements to the cycling environment may be necessary before coverage becomes more positive.

/pdf/representations-of-cycling-in-metropolitan-newspapers-2uz4mh1zfc.pdf

Representations of cycling in metropolitan newspapers - Changes over time and differences between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia

Background: Cycling is important for health, transport, environmental and economic reasons. Newspaper reporting of cycling reflects and can influence public and policy maker attitudes towards resource allocation for cycling and cycling infrastructure, yet such coverage has not been systematically examined. Methods: The Factiva electronic news archive was searched for articles referring to cycling published in four major metropolitan newspapers - two in Sydney and two in Melbourne, Australia, in the years from 1998 until 2008. After excluding articles not about cycling, there were 61 articles published in 1998, 45 in 1999, 51 in 2003, 82 in 2007 and 87 in 2008. Each article was coded for positive or negative orientation, and for framing of cyclists and cycling. Inter-rater reliability was calculated on a sample of 30 articles. Results: Over the past decade there has been an increase in the reporting of cycling in the major newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne (from 106 in 1998/99 to 169 stories in 2007/08), with a significant increase in reporting of cycling in Melbourne, from 49 to 103 stories (p = 0.04). Recent reporting of cycling was generally positive (47% of articles, compared with 30% of articles which were negative) and focused on benefits such as health and the environment. Three quarters of negative stories involved injury or death of a cyclist. The Sydney based The Daily Telegraph reported the most negative stories (n = 60). We found positive framing of 'cycling' was more widespread than negative, whereas framing of 'cyclists' was more negative than positive. Conclusions: Quantity of reporting of cycling varies over time and by newspaper, and even between newspapers in different cities owned by the same media company. News coverage appears to reflect developments in the different cities, with increases in positive reporting of cycling in Melbourne following increases in cycling in that city. Negative cycling newspaper stories may deter people from considering cycling as a transport option, but real physical or political improvements to the cycling environment may be necessary before coverage becomes more positive.

/pdf/newspapers-changes-over-time-and-differences-between-sydney-49feboihhr.pdf

Catriona Bonfiglioli

Papers

Choice and voice: obesity debates in television news.

Representations of cycling in metropolitan newspapers - Changes over time and differences between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia

newspapers - changes over time and differences between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia

The Cinderella of public health news: physical activity coverage in Australian newspapers, 1986-2006.

A Wandering Mind