Can Television Change Anti‐Fat Attitudes and Behavior?1

Abstract

This work investigated negative attitudes toward overweight people and whether anti‐fat attitudes and behavior could be reduced by media‐based empathy and classical conditioning interventions. Participants were first primed by an empathy‐evoking video of obese persons or a non‐weight‐related control video. Next, they viewed either a video portraying obese persons positively (e.g., as competent) or negatively (e.g., as clumsy). Participants completed outcome measures of implicit and explicit weight‐related attitudes and participated in a covert behavioral task (competence ratings of thin and overweight job applicants). Results confirm strong implicit and explicit anti‐fat bias across conditions, yet participants rated overweight job applicants more highly in most domains while disfavoring overweight candidates on a personal level. Overall, bias persisted despite video interventions, although surprisingly the negative (stereotypic) video was associated with somewhat reduced bias. Relationships among implicit bias, explicit bias, individual‐difference variables, and awareness of obesity as a social problem are explored and discussed.