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Frequency and Correlates of Weight-Based Discrimination among Adolescents in China

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Abstract

Background

Unfair treatment on the basis of body weight is common in the West and associated with lower well-being, starting at least as early as adolescence. We examine whether the frequency and predictors and correlates of weight discrimination seen in the West extend to adolescents in China.

Methods

Participants (N = 1539) were adolescents in China who took part in a longitudinal study of mental health and academic burnout in high school. At Wave 1, participants reported on their personality and well-being and completed a school health check that included measured height and weight. At Wave 2 approximately 6 months later, participants reported on experiences with unfair treatment and completed the same measures of well-being.

Results

Of 10 attributions for unfair treatment, weight was most common at 18%. Female gender and body mass index were associated with greater risk of reporting weight discrimination. Emotional stability, conscientiousness, and state happiness measured at Wave 1 were associated with lower risk of weight discrimination at Wave 2. Concurrently, weight discrimination was associated with lower happiness, less life satisfaction, and more distress.

Conclusions

Adolescents in China report weight discrimination, and the patterns of association between weight discrimination and psychological function are similar to what is seen in the West.

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Notes

  1. Almost 75% of participants (n = 1127) resided at the school because their homes were too far from the high school to commute. The pattern of results was the same if residential status was included as an additional covariate, including the analysis of relationship satisfaction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University College of Medicine, 1115 W. Call Street, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, USA

    Angelina R. Sutin & Antonio Terracciano

  2. Peking University School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Beijing, China

    Gunjun Li & Lei Wang

Authors
  1. Angelina R. Sutin
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  2. Antonio Terracciano
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  3. Gunjun Li
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  4. Lei Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lei Wang.

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Statement Regarding Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Institutional Review Board of Psychology at Peking University approved this study (Protocol #2014-09-01).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sutin, A.R., Terracciano, A., Li, G. et al. Frequency and Correlates of Weight-Based Discrimination among Adolescents in China. Int.J. Behav. Med. 28, 523–527 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-021-09982-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-021-09982-0

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