美国孩子对肥胖同伴的厌恶情绪已经增长
NEW YORK, Nov 09 (Reuters Health) - Today's body-conscious children and adults are more likely to judge their overweight peers harshly than they were 40 years ago, according to the results of a new study.
When US middle school and college students were asked to pick the person they liked the most out of a group, the thin person was almost always chosen first and the obese person last, lead investigator Janet Latner of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, reported.
Latner presented the findings of her study, called "Stigma and Childhood Obesity: Forty Years and Counting," on Thursday in Washington, DC, at a conference sponsored by the American Obesity Association.
She and her colleagues showed drawings of six children of various shapes and sizes to 458 middle school children and 348 college students. The drawings depicted children who were healthy, deformed, disabled or obese, Latner explained.
"We asked the students to rate the figures in order of who they liked the best," she told Reuters Health.
The current findings were compared to results of the same study conducted in 1961.
In general, "females disliked the obese person more than males and thinness was chosen as more likable than when the study was first conducted back in 1961," Latner told Reuters Health.
Obese children and adults are more likely to suffer low self-esteem because of this stigmatization and are more likely to experience hurtful remarks or incidents as a result of their weight, Latner noted.
"More attention on acceptance of others is needed in schools," she said.
The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese has swelled to such a level that public health officials call it an epidemic.
An estimated 13% of children aged 6 to 11 and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 are now overweight, according to data from a 1999 nutrition survey. This represents a 2% to 3% increase from the results of an earlier survey that ended in 1994, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A child who has a body mass index (BMI) that is greater than 95% of their peers is considered obese and one who has a BMI greater than 85% of their peers is considered overweight. BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height., http://www.100md.com
When US middle school and college students were asked to pick the person they liked the most out of a group, the thin person was almost always chosen first and the obese person last, lead investigator Janet Latner of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, reported.
Latner presented the findings of her study, called "Stigma and Childhood Obesity: Forty Years and Counting," on Thursday in Washington, DC, at a conference sponsored by the American Obesity Association.
She and her colleagues showed drawings of six children of various shapes and sizes to 458 middle school children and 348 college students. The drawings depicted children who were healthy, deformed, disabled or obese, Latner explained.
"We asked the students to rate the figures in order of who they liked the best," she told Reuters Health.
The current findings were compared to results of the same study conducted in 1961.
In general, "females disliked the obese person more than males and thinness was chosen as more likable than when the study was first conducted back in 1961," Latner told Reuters Health.
Obese children and adults are more likely to suffer low self-esteem because of this stigmatization and are more likely to experience hurtful remarks or incidents as a result of their weight, Latner noted.
"More attention on acceptance of others is needed in schools," she said.
The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese has swelled to such a level that public health officials call it an epidemic.
An estimated 13% of children aged 6 to 11 and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 are now overweight, according to data from a 1999 nutrition survey. This represents a 2% to 3% increase from the results of an earlier survey that ended in 1994, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A child who has a body mass index (BMI) that is greater than 95% of their peers is considered obese and one who has a BMI greater than 85% of their peers is considered overweight. BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height., http://www.100md.com