Support for weight-related anti-discrimination laws and policies: Modelling the role of attitudes toward poverty alongside weight stigma, causal attributions about weight, and prejudice

Food Insecurity and Weight Discrimination: A Gender-Based Study

Food insecurity has been identified as an understudied risk factor for weight-based stigma and discrimination. This study leverages data from 1,904 working-age adults to examine the food insecurity-weight-based discrimination relationship, as well as tests gender differences for this association. Logistic regression models revealed that food insecurity was significantly associated with higher odds of reporting weight-based discrimination in both unadjusted and adjusted models. Importantly, this association was only significant in the female sample. Contrary to expectations, body mass index (BMI) did not moderate this relationship among women. These findings highlight the gendered nature of the food insecurity-weight discrimination link, underscoring the need for targeted interventions and policies addressing food insecurity and weight stigma, particularly among women. Specifically, public health practitioners should consider screening for both food insecurity and experiences of weight discrimination, especially when working with female patients. Furthermore, policymakers should consider the interconnected nature of food insecurity and weight discrimination when designing programs to address either issue. Finally, future research should explore the mechanisms underlying these associations and investigate potential interventions to mitigate the negative impacts of food insecurity and weight discrimination on health and well-being.

Stigma power in practice: Exploring the contribution of Bourdieu's theory to stigma, discrimination and health research

Stigma and discrimination are increasingly understood as shaping health, and in turn conceptualised as social processes shaped by power and structural inequities. A challenge to analysis and implementing interventions is developing theory that can integrate analysis of structure, agency and power. One theoretical framework already promoted by prominent scholars as supporting this need is Bourdieu's social practice theory. This paper explores the application to date of Bourdieu's theory on stigma, discrimination and health. The paper describes how existing health literature has used concepts of symbolic violence, fields, capitals and habitus to develop insight into stigma power. The discussion explores how this theoretical framework is though underutilised and there has been little consideration of new programmatic approaches based on this theory. Directions for future research include the need for integrated approaches to analysis, especially using habitus to explore stigma power, and addressing processes of change. Directions for conceptualising interventions address how a mismatch of field and habitus could foster change and then the role for prophets in fostering symbolic revolutions. All these potential directions must in turn be integrated within the vast scholarship on stigma. In conclusion, further application and development of Bourdieu's social practice theory could help address the theoretical challenges facing the field of stigma, discrimination and health research.