Study title

This was a short validation study of the Weight Stigma Resistance Scale (WSRS). At Time 1, 123 high-weight, UK-based participants completed the WSRS, the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and the Brief Social Dominance Orientation, Short-Form (SDO7s). At Time 2, two weeks later, a subset of 62 of the original participants completed the WSRS a second time. The WSRS demonstrated good convergent and divergent validity and good test-retest reliability.The prevalence of high-weight status is increasing globally, with approximately 60% of people in the UK considered 'overweight' or 'obese' by BMI standards, and similar rates in many other countries. Despite this, higher-weight individuals experience prejudice and discrimination in practically every domain of daily living, including education, employment, healthcare, and interpersonal relationships. We know from other oppressed groups that stigma is associated with poorer health and life outcomes, and in the last ten years, these effects have been demonstrated also in the case of weight stigma. A better understanding of how these processes occur and identification of potential targets for intervention to reduce resulting harms is of critical importance to public policy. Little is known about how the impact of weight stigma is transmitted, and even less on how the harms can be minimised. My PhD work focused predominantly on internalised weight stigma (IWS) - the phenomenon where higher-weight people devalue themselves because of their weight. IWS has been linked with a range of physical and psychological health problems, and unhelpful coping strategies such as disordered eating, avoidance of exercise, social isolation, and substance use. IWS is also an intermediary in many of the problems associated with experiencing stigma from others. However, we do not know why some people internalise societal stigma, others are largely unaffected, and some actively resist and challenge the stigma. During my PhD, I developed the...