Antiobesity campaigns blaming individual behaviors for obesity have sparked concern that an emphasis on individual behavior may lead to stigmatization of overweight or obese people. Past studies have shown that perpetuating stigma is not effective for influencing behavior.
This study examined whether stigmatizing or nonstigmatizing images and text in antiobesity advertisements led to differences in health-related behavioral intentions.
Participants in this experiment were 161 American adults. Measures included self-reported body mass index, weight satisfaction, antifat attitudes, and intention to increase healthy behaviors.
Images in particular prompted intention to increase healthy behavior, but only among participants who were not overweight or obese.
Images and text emphasizing individual responsibility for obesity may influence behavioral intention among those who are not overweight, but they do not seem to be effective at altering behavioral intentions among overweight people, the target audience for many antiobesity messages. Images in antiobesity messages intended to alter behavior are influential and should be selected carefully.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 June 2020.
All research outputs
#11,109,863
of 33,779,198 outputs
Outputs from Health Education & Behavior
#822
of 1,750 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#96,452
of 288,138 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Health Education & Behavior
#18
of 29 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 66th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,750 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 288,138 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 29 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 37th percentile – i.e., 37% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
