Marla E. Eisenberg|Ashley Carlson?McGuire|Sarah E. Gollust|Dianne Neumark?Sztainer
A content analysis of weight stigmatization in popular television programming for adolescents
University of Minnesota|Adolescent Health Clinic|University of Minnesota|Minnesota Department of Health|University of Minnesota|University of Minnesota
study provides updated information regarding prevalence characteristics weight stigma popular adolescent television programming using sample favorite shows named diverse adolescentsparticipants large populationbased study minnesota adolescents n 2793 mean age 144 listed top three favorite television shows coding instrument developed analyze randomly selected episodes popular 10 programs weightstigmatizing incidents compared across television show characteristics characters gender weight statushalf 50 30 episodes analyzed contained least one weightstigmatizing incident youth adulttargeted shows contained weightstigmatizing comments percent comments much higher youthtargeted 556 general audiencetargeted shows 83 male characters likely females engage 727 vs 273 targets weight stigma 636 vs 364 difference amount weight stigmatizing directed average weight females compared overweight females targets instances showed negative response onethird cases audience laughter followed 409 casesthe portrayal weight stigmatization popular television showsincluding targeting women average weightsends signals adolescents wide acceptability behavior expected response may harmful prevention weight stigmatization take multifaceted approach include media future research explore impact weightrelated stigma television content viewers