A University of Queensland study has found that public health campaigns needed to challenge weight stigma and promote body positivity if they are to boost the health and wellbeing of people of all body sizes.
Study leader and School of Psychology PhD scholar, Joanne Rathbone said public health messages often encouraged weight-loss and focused on the risks that excess weight might pose to health, which could be ‘stigmatising’.
“We looked at how alternative ways of framing public health messages affected people, and compared these outcomes with those from typical weight-loss messages,” Ms Rathbone said.
“The alternative messages we tested either did not mention weight, explicitly targeted people of all body sizes without focusing on weight-loss, or challenged weight stigma and encouraged body positivity and size acceptance.”
She said the study examined how those different public health messages affected people’s perceptions of weight stigma, their motivation to engage in healthy behaviour like eating fruits and vegetables and exercising, as well as unhealthy behaviour associated with disordered eating like skipping meals or purging.
Ms Rathbone said public health campaigns needed to move away from focusing on weight-loss and should avoid using weight-stigmatising content.
“Past research has indicated time and time again that public health messages that focus on weight-loss and use weight-stigmatising content are unlikely to be effective at encouraging healthy behaviour,” she said.
“In fact, the evidence suggests that these messages can actually be harmful to people’s health and wellbeing.”
She said the study found there was no one-size-fits-all approach.
“Careful consideration needs to be given to the weight-related framing of public health messages, based on the goals that these messages are trying to achieve and the target audience,” Ms Rathbone said.
The research report was co-authored by Professor Jolanda Jetten and Dr Tegan Cruwys and was published in March in the Journal of Health Psychology.
