Anti-Fat Attitudes of African American Preschool Children: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Negative attitudes towards obesity are nearly ubiquitous in western society, with measurable anti-fat attitudes in children even as young as three years of age. Unfortunately, the research on the anti-fat attitudes in preschool children has used primarily white, middle class children as their participants. This is a significant limitation as previous research indicates that minority children are at greater risk of obesity and that African American individuals may have greater acceptance of a larger body size.The goal of the current study was to investigate the extent to which young African American preschool children harbor anti-fat attitudes toward obese body types. 24 African American preschool children were asked to assign both positive and negative attributes to pictures of three different body sizes (thin, average, obese). Results indicated that preschool children aged 4 and 5 attribute more negative characteristics to obese body figures than to either thin or average, while 3-year=old African American children do not. Children's BMI was not a significant correlate of anti-fat attitudes. Findings further research by showing that not only Caucasian children harbor anti-fat attitudes, but also young African American children harbor measureable negative attitudes towards obesity by age 4.