Exploring how weight stigma relates to psychological distress, physical activity, and eating behaviors over time: a longitudinal study among young adults in Hong Kong

Fung, XCC, Siu, AMH, Ye, J, Chen, J-H, Chen, J-S, Bevan, N, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, Lin, C-Y and Lau, BWM, 2026. Exploring how weight stigma relates to psychological distress, physical activity, and eating behaviors over time: a longitudinal study among young adults in Hong Kong. Journal of Eating Disorders, 14 (1): 50. ISSN 2050-2974

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Abstract

Background: Many researchers have expressed concerns that weight stigma may cause adverse health effects and worsen weight issues in a vicious cycle. However, empirical evidence evaluating this cycle is scarce, especially among Eastern Asians. The present study investigated the temporal associations among perceived weight stigma, weight-related self-stigma, psychological distress, perceived behavioral control, physical activity, eating behaviors, and body mass index (BMI) changes.

Methods: A one-year longitudinal survey was carried out to explore if the weight cycle exists among young adults in Hong Kong. The study comprised 345 participants at Time 1 (T1), 253 participants at T2, 233 participants at T3, and 235 participants at T4. Participants completed self-reported psychometric instruments in an online survey. The analysis employed parallel process latent growth curve modeling and a random intercept cross-lagged panel model.

Results: Temporal relationships existed in the connections between perceived stigma and self-stigma, and self-stigma and perceived behavioral control. A negative relationship between self-stigma and future BMI was found, whereas future self-stigma showed no significant association with previous BMI.

Conclusion: The growth trajectories of the studied variables did not correlate with changes in BMI. However, self-stigma showed a negative association with subsequent BMI in a different model. Further research is needed to clarify whether weight stigma is impacted by changes in BMI.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Eating Disorders
Creators:	Fung, X.C.C., Siu, A.M.H., Ye, J., Chen, J.-H., Chen, J.-S., Bevan, N., Griffiths, M.D., Lin, C.-Y. and Lau, B.W.M.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	December 2026
Volume:	14
Number:	1
ISSN:	2050-2974
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s40337-026-01525-w DOI 2575503 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2026. 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/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	13 Feb 2026 16:35
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2026 16:35
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/55276

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