Sport Science & Wellness Education

Awareness of effective weight management strategies is necessary to prepare exercise science students for future work with obesity.  Exercise science faculty developed a course related to exercise as a therapeutic tool and options available for weight loss. Purpose: This study investigates students’ views of weight management and obesity which can be a difficult task utilizing traditional methods such as Likert scale surveys. Methods: To investigate students’ views relative to the course content, Q Methodology, which is a mixed method research approach, was used at the beginning and at the end of the course. Students completed a Q-sort, ranking 44 statements related to obesity in accordance to their own points of view. The pretest/posttest design enabled an opportunity to determine if course goals were accomplished and if students’ perceptions related to obesity were transformed. Results: Factor analysis of pre-course sorts revealed students possessed a naïve singular view of weight related concepts.  Analysis of sorts at course completion resulted in a two-factor solution revealing changes in perspective; some students took on a health professional type of view while others demonstrated anti-fat views.  Conclusion: The findings revealed key variables that should be addressed in curricula involving therapeutic obesity interventions.  Improved curriculum based on these results should better encourage students to develop broad comprehension of multifactorial causes and treatment for weight management and obesity.  Implementing the use of Q Methodology may serve as a valuable asset to measure and evaluate subjectivity of obesity discrimination.  Anti-fat attitudes among exercise science students may influence future clients’ potential achievements.

Awareness of effective weight management strategies is necessary to prepare exercise science students for future work with obesity.  Exercise science faculty developed a course related to exercise as a therapeutic tool and options available for weight loss. Purpose: This study investigates students’ views of weight management and obesity which can be a difficult task utilizing traditional methods such as Likert scale surveys. Methods: To investigate students’ views relative to the course content, Q Methodology, which is a mixed method research approach, was used at the beginning and at the end of the course. Students completed a Q-sort, ranking 44 statements related to obesity in accordance to their own points of view. The pretest/posttest design enabled an opportunity to determine if course goals were accomplished and if students’ perceptions related to obesity were transformed. Results: Factor analysis of pre-course sorts revealed students possessed a naïve singular view of weight related concepts.  Analysis of sorts at course completion resulted in a two-factor solution revealing changes in perspective; some students took on a health professional type of view while others demonstrated anti-fat views.  Conclusion: The findings revealed key variables that should be addressed in curricula involving therapeutic obesity interventions.  Improved curriculum based on these results should better encourage students to develop broad comprehension of multifactorial causes and treatment for weight management and obesity.  Implementing the use of Q Methodology may serve as a valuable asset to measure and evaluate subjectivity of obesity discrimination.  Anti-fat attitudes among exercise science students may influence future clients’ potential achievements.

Race/Ethnicity as a Variable in the Perception of the Ideal Body Composition/Physique ¹MacCracken, M.J. and ²Stadulis, R.E.

¹University of Akron, Akron, OH; ²Kent State University, Kent, OH.

Abstract

Within contemporary societies, there appears to be a growing interest in the way in which individuals evaluate the quality of one’s physique.  Particularly related to this interest are the concerns of many about the growing incidence of obesity in our societies.  Researchers from across the globe have pursued the relationship between body composition and variables such as physical self-concept and social physique anxiety.  For example, adolescents and adults from Portugal and Spain (Hagger et al., 2010) and Asia, Pacific Islands, and Australia (Latner et al., 2011) have been assessed.  In the United States, of special concern is the perspective that the race of the person affects his/her perception of what the ideal physique should be.  This view seems especially true for females.  This presentation reviews the literature dealing with the perception of the ideal physique with an emphasis upon societal stereotyping and cultural perspectives.  A summary of findings from our research with respect to comparing the body composition and social physique anxiety of different American racial/ethnic groups indicates that: over the five year span of USA early adolescents (10-14 years-old) both body composition (CDC BMI and BMI percentiles) and social physique anxiety (SPA) increase; girls evidence higher BMIs and SPA than boys consistently across this age span; and the greater the BMI the higher the SPA.  Concerning race and females specifically, over the age span studied, differences in BMI and SPA between White and Black girls were negligible.  However, when using the CDC body composition classifications, a difference between the two races was evident for girls classified as “obese” with White girls having significantly higher SPA than the Black girls.  This racial difference supports the hypothesis that larger Black women are more accepted in the Black culture and thus have lower anxiety with respect to a larger body composition.  This cultural difference appears to develop during early adolescence and does not become evident until the teen years but longitudinal investigation is needed to determine the validity of this hypothesis.  With respect to growing concerns about the “obesity epidemic,” attempts to motivate adolescents of different races may then require different approaches.  Research with adolescents world-wide could determine whether the same relationship between race, body composition and social physique anxiety observed in the US is present in other cultures.

Prior research has demonstrated that early adolescents with a higher body mass index (BMI) have higher social physique anxiety and that those perceiving their ideal body as leaner than their own have higher BMI and anxiety values. This study examined relationships between social physique anxiety (SPA), body composition, and body image satisfaction and dissatisfaction (current and ideal) over a two-year period.  Middle school students (N = 60) completed the Social Physique Anxiety Scale for Children (SPAS-C, Stadulis et al., 2005) and Collins’ (1991) Pictorial Instrument of Child Figures (PICF) at approximately the same point mid-fall.  Height and weight were assessed and BMI percentiles were determined (CDC, 2011). Student, parent and school consent were obtained.  For both years, the girls (n = 30, M = 24.1) demonstrated higher levels (p = .049) of social physique anxiety than the boys (n =30, M = 21.5).  Both sexes evidenced a significant (p = .01) decrease (M = 2.3) in SPA from year 1 to year 2.  Boys had a higher BMI mean percentile (M = 75.2) than the girls (M = 64.6).  Students assessed seven pictorial depictions (PICF), from very thin to obese, as to whether the figures were most like themselves and which would be their ideal physique.  The mean difference for the group between “most like me” and the “ideal” was -.367 (negative score indicates ideal is leaner than perceived current physique) in year 1 and -.092 in year 2 (p = .005).  The boys (M = -.273) evidenced somewhat greater overall dissatisfaction with their physique than the girls (M = -.200) reflecting somewhat higher BMI values for the boys.  The apparent strong association between SPA (reduced from year 1) and perception of physique as closer to ideal in year 2 seems to indicate that decreasing BMI can also decrease SPA.