Examining the impact of perceived weight discrimination on reported eating and exercise among White and Latino/a adults

Highlights

• We examined weight discrimination and health variables among White and Latino/a adults.

• Weight discrimination is associated with unhealthy eating among White adults (N = 50).

• Weight discrimination is related to exercise thoughts and behaviors among White adults.

• Weight discrimination is unrelated to eating or exercise among Latino/a adults (N = 281).

Abstract

A large body of research suggests that, among White individuals, perceived weight discrimination has deleterious consequences for eating and exercise outcomes; however, the research literature on perceived weight discrimination among other racial/ethnic groups is limited. The primary goal of the present study was to examine the associations of perceived weight discrimination with eating and exercise thoughts and behaviors among White versus Latino/a participants. A sample of White (N = 50) and Latino/a (N = 281) undergraduate college students with higher body weight (BMI: M = 30.65, SD = 5.42) completed self-report measures assessing perceived weight-based discrimination, frequency of intake of unhealthy and healthy foods, and frequency of both thoughts about exercise and exercise behaviors; we examined relationships among these variables within White versus Latino/a participants. Results showed that perceived weight discrimination was associated with more frequent intake of unhealthy foods, more frequent exercise thoughts, and less frequent exercise behaviors among White participants, and that there were no significant associations between perceived weight discrimination and the eating and exercise measures of interest among Latino/a participants. These findings highlight a number of potential avenues for future research to identify the mechanisms underlying these differential associations of perceived weight discrimination to eating and exercise behaviors across racial/ethnic groups.

Introduction

Weight discrimination is prevalent in the United States (Brochu & Esses, 2011). A substantial amount of evidence suggests that perceiving oneself to be stigmatized or discriminated against because of higher body weight is associated with concerning consequences for physical (e.g., Puhl & Suh, 2015; Sutin et al., 2016; Udo et al., 2016) and psychological (e.g., Brochu, 2020; Spahlholz et al., 2016) health. Research has drawn clear links from weight stigmatization to potentially maladaptive eating behaviors, such as increases in consumption of unhealthy foods (Epel et al., 2012), calorie intake (e.g., Major et al., 2014; Schvey et al., 2012), restrained/binge eating (e.g., Durso et al., 2012; Wellman et al., 2017; Wellman et al., 2019), and ordering of more calories on food-selection tasks (e.g., Araiza & Wellman, 2017; Brochu & Dovidio, 2014). A smaller body of literature suggests that weight stigmatization and discrimination variables also are associated with exercise outcomes, such as decreased exercise behavior (e.g., Jackson & Steptoe, 2017; Mensinger & Meadows, 2017; Pearl et al., 2015), exercise motivation (Sattler et al., 2018), and increased desire to avoid exercise (Vartanian & Shaprow, 2008).

Importantly, much of the research in this area has been conducted using primarily White samples. Less studied are these associations among Hispanic or Latino/a individuals and the research that does exist, focusing on eating outcomes, is somewhat inconsistent. Some research has shown no differences in the associations of perceived weight discrimination with problematic eating behaviors (Rodgers et al., 2017) and no relationships between negative weight-related attitudes and severity of disordered eating (Puhl et al., 2011), whereas other research has observed such differences. Associations have been found between negative weight-related attitudes and disordered eating among White men, but not men identifying as Hispanic/Latino/a (Lydecker et al., 2019). Other studies have found that, compared to White individuals, women identifying as Hispanic are more likely to cope with weight stigmatization through disordered eating (Himmelstein et al., 2017) and men identifying as Hispanic are more likely to engage in binge eating, presumably due to marginalization and stress (see Ricciardelli et al., 2007).

The limited research on perceived weight discrimination and its associations to eating and exercise outcomes across racial/ethnic groups is concerning, as outcomes may vary by group. Additionally, much of the research has focused on disordered eating outcomes, with little focus on subclinical or healthy eating behaviors and no research examining exercise outcomes, which are intertwined and influence weight. The present study examined among White and Latino/a individuals higher in body weight whether perceived weight discrimination related to reported food intake frequency, exercise thoughts, and exercise behaviors; we distinguished between exercise thoughts and exercise behaviors because exercise thoughts are related to people's intentions to exercise, which often differ from exercise behaviors (Gomes, Morais, & Carneiro, 2017). We hypothesized that greater perceived weight discrimination would be associated with more unhealthy food intake, less healthy food intake, increased thinking about exercise, and decreased engagement in exercise. We also tested race/ethnicity as a moderator of these associations. We did not have a priori predictions about the nature of the ethnicity moderating effects, given previously inconsistent findings.