Students training to become nutrition professionals may carry the very weight-based prejudices they will one day be asked to dismantle, according to a cross-sectional questionnaire study published in BioPsychoSocial Medicine.
The research team, led by Takehiro Nozaki and colleagues, set out to fill a gap in the stigma literature. The researchers hypothesized that stigma would differ across academic years and would be associated with eating disorder tendencies and body dissatisfaction.
An online survey was distributed to first- through fourth-year nutrition science students. Of those invited, 698 students responded, a response rate of 79 percent, and 697 responses were included in the final analysis. The study used four established instruments: the Attitudes toward Obese Persons Scale (ATOP) and the Beliefs about Obese Persons Scale (BAOP) to assess obesity stigma, the Eating Attitude Test-26 (EAT-26) to measure eating disorder tendencies, and the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) to gauge body dissatisfaction. Associations with stigma were examined using univariate and multiple regression analyses.
The results ran partly counter to the researchers’ expectations. Rather than stigma increasing as students progressed toward professional practice, ATOP scores were highest among first-year female students, indicating more positive attitudes toward individuals with obesity. Among female students, greater body dissatisfaction remained associated with lower ATOP scores even after statistical adjustment, making body dissatisfaction the most consistent correlate of stigmatizing attitudes in the study.
The second stigma measure told a complementary story. On the BAOP, which captures the tendency to blame obese individuals for their weight, first-year students were less likely to attribute obesity to personal responsibility. This reduced blame tendency was itself associated with having a higher body mass index and lower BSQ scores, suggesting that students more satisfied with their own body shape were also less inclined to assign personal fault for obesity.
Notably, eating disorder tendencies did not hold up as an independent predictor. EAT-26 scores were not significantly associated with either ATOP or BAOP scores in the adjusted analyses, despite the researchers’ initial hypothesis. This dissociation matters because it suggests that disordered eating and stigmatizing attitudes, while often discussed together, may follow partly separate psychological pathways in this population.
The authors conclude that body dissatisfaction was consistently associated with obesity stigma among female students, whereas eating disorder tendencies were not independently associated once adjustments were applied. They caution that these findings warrant further longitudinal investigation to clarify whether educational experiences during the nutrition program contribute to stigma, since the cross-sectional design cannot establish whether attitudes change over time or differ for other reasons.
As a single-university survey, the study’s scope is limited, and its findings describe associations rather than causal effects.
Subject of Research: Obesity stigma and its correlates among nutrition science students
Article Title: Obesity stigma and associated factors among nutrition science students: a cross-sectional questionnaire study
Article References: Nozaki, T., Uemura, Y., Koyama, K. I., Yoshida, H., Kato, M., & Kawate, H. (2026). Obesity stigma and associated factors among nutrition science students: a cross-sectional questionnaire study. BioPsychoSocial Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-026-00373-z
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s13030-026-00373-z
Keywords: obesity stigma, nutrition science students, body dissatisfaction, eating disorder tendencies, cross-sectional study, ATOP, BAOP, EAT-26, Body Shape Questionnaire, healthcare professionals, weight bias, Obesity
News Source: Daisy Hatcher. (October 28, 2026). Obesity stigma among nutrition students linked to body dissatisfaction, study finds. Scienmag.
