Discuss about the Weight Stigma on Adolescent.
Adolescence is one of the crucial stages in the developmental process of any individual. At this stage, several influences exist in the developmental process of this particular phase. For example, body shape of an individual, weight status, appearance all plays a vital role in the developmental process. Weight status becomes an important concern. Weight stigma comes into the consideration mainly with the adolescents. They are obsessed with their body stature, body size. They are quiet susceptible towards the negative attitudes in the different approaches and the domains of life such as, educational industry, professional field, mass media or any interpersonal relationships.
Obesity has become a major cause and a challenge all throughout the world. The reports on the obesity have increased predominantly. Several researches were conducted on examine the impacts of the weight stigmatization. Laziness, lack of intelligence, sloppiness were concluded as per to the studies that were performed against obese class of people. A multidimensional framework was formed against the circumferential on the involving the ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling or acting towards our bodies starting from healthy perspective to the unhealthy one.
Obese people always suffered the discrimination in a wide spread dimensions in our society. The areas include education, employment services, relationships, and other extended family issues. Obese people also suffers health issues like Type II diabetes, cardiac disorders, high blood pressures, cholesterol and they had to suffer a deal of contemptuousness and discrimination.
The research questions are derived mainly from the research documents based on weight stigma and obesity among the adolescence. The literature review is based on the weight stigma that is present among one of the crucial age, the adolescence. The adolescents are always conscious on their weight and try to keep distance from the obese people among their age.
Several researches already conducted, based on the weight stigma among the adolescents. This literature review is based on the previous researches that focused on the adolescents and their concern on weight.
The researches were based only on the food habits of the adolescents, but over-weight is not only the cause of over eating but also other factors can affect the weight of an individual on which he/she can be the sufferer against the weight stigma. Overweight can be due to the hormonal issues, genetic factors as well.
This research did not focus on the other factors that contribute on the weight gain of an adolescent. Therefore, the factors other than over-eating acts as a research gap of the given literature review.
The past 35 years had laid emphasis on the body image. The area where the interests are growing is based on the public health that concerns on the weight status, obesity and disorders in eating. It reflects the spectrum on the health consequences. Body image laid the construction of the multidimensional including perceiving, feeling, thinking and acting towards the bodies. The evidence shows that the body image is unhealthy when it is associated with the physical inactivity and obesity. It plays a significant role for the development related to eating disorder when human being reaches adolescence. The development significance for a healthy body image depends on the magnitude of the of transitions relating to age and the type of adolescence (Alberg et al. 2016).
The cultural, social, psychological and the physical changes have the variety of characteristics regarding the adolescence period. The body images get a new shape from the age of twelve to eighteen years. The culture regarding the appearances often targets the teenager. This also laid to the negative impact on the image of the body. According to a review done on the Meta analysis shows that the dissatisfaction of the body often takes place in girls whose age is around nineteen (Bhurosy, Jeewon 2014). The dissatisfaction leads to thin images. The ideals and the beliefs are been re-incorporated by other adolescent that includes friends, peers and families. The research showed that considering the case of the families the teasing regarding the issue of weight base is from parents whereas the sibling is involved with the dissatisfaction of the bodies within the girls and the boys goes for muscularity from the grade of eighth or ninth. It is observed that the parents encouraged in controlling the weight (Douglas, Varnado-Sullivan 2016). The controlling of weight was linked with the heightened weight alarms within the boys and the girls of the school. The pessimistic view regarding the diet within the members of the family serving as the model for the image of the body lead to the concerns of eating disorder especially within the girls who are about to gain the adolescence. Peers have pointed out the most effective source related to weight and based on appearance. Researches have pointed out the influence the friends and the peers have on an individual when he or she is reaching the adolescence. The individual might face the criticism, teasing based on appearance and comparisons made on appearances.
Over the past thirty years, percentage of obese adolescence became quadrupled. The estimation done recently shows that approximately 17% that is around 12.7 million of people around the age of two to nineteen years are obese. This report is for a country like United States. The percentage found in the Hispanic youth is around 22.4% and among the non-Hispanic youth it is around 20.2%. Among the section of childhood as well as the adolescence, it is 8.4% for two to five years old, 17.7% for six to eleven years old and 20.5% for twelve to nineteen years old. The status of youths is firmly dependent on the body image. The greater index of body mass is seen for the adolescent boys and girls. The studies show that the influence on the body image is on a long term basis. The greater the BMI at the time of Adolescence the greater is the dissatisfaction of the body caused. The literature review is done taking the weight status and the body weight to be constant but the varied factors are Internalization that defines the degree of adaptation of an individual.
There are certain exceptions that could be found that supports the internalization to be the significant construct for explaining the existing relationship between the weight status and the body image. The relative contributors like various factors of biological, social variables and psychological for doing the body image among the six hundred twenty nine boys and six hundred fifty nine girls who are in grade six to eight. The accounting related to BMI and development of pubertal shows that the girls having higher BMI they are having a greater pressure for attaining low weight, poor perceptions, low physical ability and higher esteem with higher body satisfaction. The boys, there is a perceived pressure for gaining muscularity and poor self concept of physical ability. Though Internalization inter-related with the BMI and satisfaction of the body but it could not come out to be the special indicator that could satisfy the boys and the girls. According to the study of the researcher Mitchell considering around six hundred eighty five girls who are in grade six to eight has a variety approach towards the examination of BMI. The examination is the mediator of association in between centralization and dissatisfaction of the body. BMI is related with both the variables but could not mediate the relationship (Vartanian and Porter 2016). The multiple factors like complex, dynamic, psychological influences and multifaceted are to be considered for not mediating the relationship. Adolescence and variables considering pressures and concerns like social comparison, bullying and weight related social talk overplays the effect of internalization. It also overplays the relationship between the status of weight and image of the body (Douglas 2015).
Weight and appearance related facts and pressures intervene links between body weight/BMI along with body image. Weight and pressure related facts can be noticed when individuals over thinks about their weight and physique e.g. considering that there body has gained extra fat and not muscular. Also they tend to think that others are also considering them in the same way thus they start feeling unacceptable. According to the researcher, the research shows that considering 128 boys reading in 8 to 11 grades. The observation shows that BMI was too much negative as the students lack muscularity (Eisenberg et al. 2015). The lack of muscularity as well as the thinness is a concern for the dissatisfaction of the body. Therefore, the effect related for not being muscular and having too much overweight is consistent and seen in the bodies of the male (Tomiyama 2014). This accounts for the resultant in variance in between the mass of the body and dissatisfaction of the body. The researchers also suggested that the weight pressure is an important indicator of the satisfaction related to the body and the satisfaction results including the report of BMI (Hunger et al.2015). They also founded that pressure that is perceived to gain the muscularity is the indication of the male and for the female it was to lose significant amount of weight. The studies and the research show the collaboration between the internalization and the pressure. The study of Petrie failed to infer that the internalization is an indicator of satisfaction of the body. When the results of the research are integrated together it showed that pressure due to perceive is way to more than the internalization influence(Pearl et al. 2016). The associated factors that are related between the complex relationship of status of weight and image of body incorporate the influence due to social challenges like bullying done due to issues related to weight, fat talk and social comparison (Major et al. 2014). Social comparison is done by comparing the physique of one body of an individual with another individual who has attained adolescence or attaining the adolescence.
Another research shows the influence regarding the social comparison on dissatisfaction of body is negative due to age and is caused mostly during the adolescence period. The study by Petrie shows that there is a variance in satisfaction of body for the girls and are found engaged in social comparison. Researcher researched with 488 girls and founded that the mean age of girls is 12.35 years and 86% of the girls are concerned with the image of the body and is accounted by a model. This included the BMI, comparison socially, peers teasing and internalization. The social comparison as well as the internalization arbitrated the influence of social effects but BMI have a serious effect on the image of the body (Pearl, Puhl and Dovidio 2015).
Conclusion
Approx 97% of the recorded report says some of them always experiences weight stigma in throughout their life and approximately 48% people faced weight stigma at least once in their lifetime. It represents the qualitative reports on weight stigma for the frequent exercisers. They are the persons who continuously dehumanize, stigmatize and discriminates the obese people always. It also suggests that obesity can only be controlled with the eating habits along with the physical inactivity.
The topic of weight management and stigmatization became an important topic in the society. Obesity focuses on the vast area related to the heart disease, hypertensive factors and few cases of cancer as well. Obesity currently became an epidemic. Obesity always goes parallel with the terms of laziness, self-discipline and unhealthy lifestyle and food habits.
The present atmosphere of the society on the perspective of the weight management needs to change. The fat always focuses on the antagonistic references like emotional, physical, social and political effects as well.
References List:
Alberga, A.S., Russell?Mayhew, S., von Ranson, K.M., McLaren, L., Ramos Salas, X. and Sharma, A.M., 2016. Future research in weight bias: What next?. Obesity, 24(6), pp.1207-1209.
Bhurosy, T. and Jeewon, R., 2014. Overweight and obesity epidemic in developing countries: a problem with diet, physical activity, or socioeconomic status?. The Scientific World Journal, 2014.
Douglas, V. and Varnado-Sullivan, P., 2016. Weight stigmatization, internalization, and eating disorder symptoms: The role of emotion dysregulation. Stigma and Health, 1(3), p.166.
Douglas, V.J., 2015. Weight stigmatization, weight bias internalization, & eating disorder symptoms: The role of emotion dysregulation. SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA UNIVERSITY.
Eisenberg, M.E., Carlson?McGuire, A., Gollust, S.E. and Neumark?Sztainer, D., 2015. A content analysis of weight stigmatization in popular television programming for adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 48(6), pp.759-766.
Hunger, J.M., Major, B., Blodorn, A. and Miller, C.T., 2015. Weighed Down by Stigma: How Weight?Based Social Identity Threat Contributes to Weight Gain and Poor Health. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9(6), pp.255-268.
Major, B., Hunger, J.M., Bunyan, D.P. and Miller, C.T., 2014. The ironic effects of weight stigma. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, pp.74-80.
Pearl, R.L., Hopkins, C.H., Berkowitz, R.I. and Wadden, T.A., 2016. Group cognitive-behavioral treatment for internalized weight stigma: a pilot study. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, pp.1-6.
Pearl, R.L., Puhl, R.M. and Dovidio, J.F., 2015. Differential effects of weight bias experiences and internalization on exercise among women with overweight and obesity. Journal of health psychology, 20(12), pp.1626-1632.
Ratcliffe, D. and Ellison, N., 2015. Obesity and internalized weight stigma: A formulation model for an emerging psychological problem. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 43(02), pp.239-252.
Tomiyama, A.J., 2014. Weight stigma is stressful. A review of evidence for the Cyclic Obesity/Weight-Based Stigma model. Appetite, 82, pp.8-15.
Vartanian, L.R. and Porter, A.M., 2016. Weight stigma and eating behavior: a review of the literature. Appetite, 102, pp.3-14.
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