Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population: The role of one's own body size, weight satisfaction, and controllability beliefs about obesity

• Controllability beliefs are strong predictors of people's attitudes towards obesity.
• Weight satisfaction in people with obesity is related to attitudes towards obesity.
• Weight satisfaction is unrelated to attitudes towards obesity in normal weight people.
• Women report more positive attitudes towards obesity than men.
• Social position does not predict individual's attitudes towards obesity.

This study examined the associations of different socio-demographic and psychological factors with attitudes towards obesity. Individuals with different weight status (N = 2436) were drawn from an annual population-based survey in Sweden, and data on attitudes towards obesity (ATOP) and predictor variables were assessed in 2008. The strongest predictor of ATOP was controllability beliefs about obesity (β = 0.83). Thus, greater controllability beliefs about obesity predicted more negative attitudes. Sex and weight satisfaction were also independently associated with ATOP. However, there was no, or only a weak, association between weight satisfaction and ATOP among individuals with normal weight or overweight. And the higher the weight satisfactions of individuals with obesity, the more positive were their attitudes. It seems that stigma-reduction strategies in the general public should address the uncontrollable factors in the aetiology of obesity. However, more research is needed to understand the underlying causes of people's attitudes towards obesity.