Sequentially mediated effects of weight-related self-stigma and psychological distress in the association between perceived weight stigma and food addiction among Taiwanese university students: a cross-sectional study

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Huang, P-C, Lee, C-H, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, O’Brien, KS, Lin, Y-C, Gan, WY, Poon, WC, Hung, C-H, Lee, K-H and Lin, C-Y, 2022. Sequentially mediated effects of weight-related self-stigma and psychological distress in the association between perceived weight stigma and food addiction among Taiwanese university students: a cross-sectional study. Journal of Eating Disorders, 10: 177. ISSN 2050-2974

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00701-y

Abstract

Background: Weight-related stigma has negative physiological and psychological impacts on individuals’ quality of life. Stigmatized individuals may experience higher psychological distress and therefore increase the potential risk to develop obesity and/or food addiction. The present study examined the associations and mediated effect between perceived weight stigma, weight-related self-stigma, and psychological distress in explaining food addiction among Taiwanese university students.

Methods: All participants (n = 968) completed an online survey which included the Perceived Weight Stigma Questionnaire, Weight Self-Stigma Questionnaire, Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21, and Yale Food Addiction Scale Version 2.

Results: After controlling for demographic variables, significant associations were found in the paths from (1) perceived weight stigma to weight-related self-stigma (β = 0.23), psychological distress (β = 0.35), and food addiction (β = 0.23); (2) weight-related self-stigma to psychological distress (β = 0.52) and food addiction (β = 0.59); and (3) psychological distress to food addiction (β = 0.59) (all p-values < 0.001). The mediation model showed the sequential mediated effect of weight-related self-stigma and psychological distress in the association between perceived weight stigma and food addiction.

Conclusions: The results provide novel insights that weight-related self-stigma and psychological distress sequentially mediated the relationship between perceived weight stigma and food addiction among Taiwanese university students. The findings of the present study could be implemented into interventions that aim to reduce food addiction derived from weight-related stigma. Future studies should consider group analysis to consider confounding factors or other populations to provide more evidence regarding the mechanism of weight-related stigma.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Eating Disorders
Creators:	Huang, P.-C., Lee, C.-H., Griffiths, M.D., O’Brien, K.S., Lin, Y.-C., Gan, W.Y., Poon, W.C., Hung, C.-H., Lee, K.-H. and Lin, C.-Y.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	21 November 2022
Volume:	10
ISSN:	2050-2974
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s40337-022-00701-y DOI 1621695 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	24 Nov 2022 09:22
Last Modified:	24 Nov 2022 09:22
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47491