Family pressure to lose weight during adolescence linked to internalized weight stigma

A recent one Lancet A study of 4,060 people found that pressure to lose weight from family and the media during adolescence could have long-lasting effects on a person’s internalized weight stigma.

“People who report experiences of weight-related stigma or discrimination are at greater risk for internalized weight stigma, usually defined as agreeing with and self-applying negative weight stereotypes, which often leads to decreased self-esteem,” the researchers explained in the study. . “Among people with obesity, internalized weight stigma is associated with eating disorders, poorer mental health and avoidance of health care.”

“People with a higher body mass index (BMI) report more experiences with weight-related stigma and greater internalized weight stigma. However, internalized weight stigma can also impact people within the recommended and underweight body mass index (BMI) categories, where it predicts disordered eating and the drive for thinness, making it relevant to mental health across the body weight.” , she added. “Internalized weight stigma varies significantly across demographic groups. The risk is increased for women, sexual minorities, and socioeconomically disadvantaged adults, and this is not explained by differences in BMI.”

Lead author Amanda M. Hughes of Bristol Medical School and colleagues used data from Bristol’s Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to investigate how internalized weight stigma occurred in 4,060 people who were 31 years old but belonged to different socio-economic and ethnic groups.

The 31-year-old participants completed questionnaires in which they rated their agreement on a scale from 1 (“doesn’t apply to me at all”) to 7 (“applies perfectly to me”) with 11 statements such as “I am less attractive than most others people because of my weight” and “I hate myself because of my weight.”

The BMI also took into account each participant’s BMI at six points: mid-childhood (age 7 years), later childhood (age 10 years), early adolescence (age 12.5 years), middle adolescence (age 15.5 years) , later adolescence (age 17.5 years) and early adulthood (age 24 years). The researchers recorded how often their parents passed on comments or teased them about their weight or how much they ate that made them feel bad specifically at age 13. Each participant also reported the extent to which their peers at school teased them about their weight and the extent to which they felt pressure to lose weight from the media and their family, friends and people they dated.

The researchers found that family and media pressure, along with being bullied by family members, were associated with the highest levels of internalized weight stigma at age 31.

“Several aspects of the social environment during development emerged as important for later internalized weight stigma: negative weight-related comments from parents, weight-based teasing from family, and pressure to lose weight from family at age 13 were robustly associated with internalized weight. stigma (IWS) in adulthood, even after taking into account the BMI of both children and adults, which underlined the importance of the family environment, were also important: in addition to weight-based teasing at school, bullying for any reason was also associated with IWS. age 31 years, especially in late adolescence and early adulthood,” the researchers explained.