| dc.description.abstract | Qualitative evidence, judicial decisions, and media reports suggest that parents of children with obesity experience stigma on account of their children's weights. However, to the best of my knowledge, little empirical work actually explores whether social perceivers stigmatize the parents of children with higher weight. Here, I test whether social perceivers stigmatize parents of children with 'obesity,' and ask what might drive this stigma. Specifically, I test a theory derived from an attribution explanation of weight stigma. An attribution theory explanation for stigmatizing adults who themselves have obesity argues that this stigma is driven by the negative attributions social perceivers make as to why targets have obesity (e.g., laziness). To test whether parents of children with obesity are stigmatized because the parents are attributed blame for children's weight, I conducted a highly-powered, pre-registered experiment using US participants (N = 254). I find that parents of children with obesity (versus healthy-weight) are stigmatized as parents, and this relationship between child weight and parental stigma is statistically mediated by attributions of blame toward parents for children's weights. In light of gender role breakdowns in parenting, I also tested whether this blame - and thus stigma - is greater for mothers versus fathers, but found no support for this. In addition to these focal tests, I also explore whether parents of children with obesity (a) are stigmatized in general (versus as 'parents') and (b) are attributed any negative personal characteristics stereotypically associated with obesity (e.g., greedy), as a traditional stigma-by-association account might imply, finding support for both of these propositions. In all, findings support an attribution theory of weight stigma, such that parents are blamed for their children's obesity and thus viewed as poor parents. I discuss implications and future directions for this work. | |
