Towards a United Front against Weight Bias.
The assumption of controllability and personal responsibility, in conjunction with the model of thinness that feeds several industries, such as the diet industry, and which transpires through
several medias and politics, can possibly explain why weight bias is particularly resistant to change and that most strategies have yet failed to show lasting effect on explicit and implicit weight bias; for example among health professionals.
It will also be beneficial to incorporate new methods and tools to precisely objectify the social acceptability of weight bias and test innovative ways to reduce its expression. For example,
neuroscience methods and techniques have been very useful in refining knowledge of race bias. Such efforts will bring further data to help guide political decisions that could help in decreasing implicit weight bias. As mentioned above, reducing social acceptability is not sufficient to prevent negative stereotypes to be internalized in the form of implicit biases. It will therefore be important to investigate new avenues to reduce implicit bias in order to obtain long-term effects that are not subject to motivation to control biases, which can be quite volatile.
Beyond the impact on the targeted population, weight bias is also detrimental to other individuals, all across the weightspectrum. The ambient discourse about the necessity to maintain a healthy weight may reinforce efforts to distance oneself from overweight stereotypes.
This knowledge will benefit focused strategies regarding prevention of obesity and eating disorders as well as the promotion of healthy habits and that of a healthy weight-neutral body image, from political decisions to personalised interventions.
Soc Behav Res Pract Open J. 2017; 3(1): e1-e2. doi: 10.17140/SBRPOJ-3-e004
