Prejudice towards obese people is rife among trainee health professionals, but can be modified, new research has found.
The study, published in the journal Obesity, says weight-based
discrimination by the public has increased by 66% over the past decade
with anti-fat prejudice among health professionals found to be high in
western nations, and often exceeding that found within the general
population.
The research by scientists at the Universities of Manchester
and Hawaii and Yale University suggests that medical and allied health
professions need to present a balanced view of the causes of, and
treatment for, obesity when training young professionals in order to reduce the strong prejudice towards obese people.
The team found that the prejudice could be either increased or
decreased depending on the type of obesity training pre-service,
health-professional students received.
