Relationship Between Adolescents’ Attitudes On Obesity And Their Mental Health In The City Of Anhui Province

Objectives： To know the current situation of adolescents’ antifat attitude on obesityand internalized weight bias of overweight or obese adolescents in a city of,AnhuiProvince. To explore the relationships between self-esteem, depression, coping styles,life satisfaction, etc. mental health factors associated with these attitudes, wereanalyzed, so as to reduce obesity discrimination sequentially, to provide a certain basisto control the growth trend of obesity better.Methods： Prevalence survey was used in middle school, vocational and universityadolescents. With the help of investigator, the students filled out the anonymousquestionnaire voluntarily. The questionnaire included demographic characteristics ofstudents (gender, age, height, weight, etc.), Antifat Attitudes Test (AFAT), Weight BiasInternalization Scale (WBIS), Self-Esteem Scale(SES), Self-Rating Depression Scales(SDS), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire(SCSQ) and Multidimensional Students’Life Satisfaction Scale(MSLSS). At the base of univariate analysis, multiple linearregression analysis was employed to explore the relationship between the AFAT scoresand self-esteem, depression, coping styles (divided into active coping style andnegative coping style), life satisfaction. And the same to WBIS scores amongoverweight or obese adolescents. To establish the path analysis diagram and draw amodel of internalized weight bias based on discrimination theories under thehypothesis self-esteem, depression, coping styles and life satisfaction to the exogenousvariables, WBIS scores to the endogenous variables.Results： Adolescents had significantly different Antifat Attitude scores on obesity in distinct gender, education, BMI and mental health situations. The boy score of2.326±0.518was higher than girls’2.096±0.455. The college students scored2.069±0.466which was lower than middle school and vocational students, thin adolescents had thehighest score of2.378±0.579, while overweight adolescents score for the lowest2.070±0.465. Multivariate linear regression results suggest that low self-esteem, highdepression, low life satisfaction, negative coping style may be the reasons for higherantifat attitudes scores.203overweight and obesity adolescents, their WBIS scoreswere significant difference between gender, education and mental health. The boysscore of3.755±0.983, was lower than girls’4.075±0.936. And the college studentsscored3.371±0.861, which was lower than the junior high school students’4.004±1.013, vocational students had the highest score of4.142±0.807. AMOS path analysisafter multivariate linear regression results revealed that there is a direct effect of lifesatisfaction and self-esteem on WBIS; self-esteem influencing life satisfaction byactive coping style produce indirect effects on WBIS; depression affecting lifesatisfaction indirectly affect WBIS.Conclusions：To strengthen mental health education may be the appropriate solution toset a good self-esteem and reduce the incidence of obesity stigma in order to achievethe purpose of controlling the tendency of obesity better.