Counter-conditioning  as an intervention to modify  anti-fat attitudes

Stuart W. Flint; Joanne Hudson; David Lavallee

doi:10.4081/​hpr.2013.e24

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Counter-conditioning as an intervention to modify anti-fat attitudes

Stuart W. Flint^1*, Joanne Hudson², David Lavallee³

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¹ Academy of Sport and Physical Activity, Health and Wellbeing Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University

² Department of Sport and Exercise Science, Aberystwyth University

³ School of Sport, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

HPR 2013 , 1(2), 1; https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2013.e24

Submitted: 21 December 2012 | Accepted: 14 January 2013 | Published: 18 April 2013

© 2013 by the Author(s). Licensee Health Psychology Research, USA. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )

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Abstract

This study examined the effect of anti-fat attitude counter-conditioning using positive images of obese individuals participants com pleted implicit and explicit measures of atti tudes towards fatness on three occasions: no intervention; following exposure to positive images of obese members of the general pub lic; and to images of obese celebrities. Contrary to expectations, positive images of obese individuals did not result in more posi tive attitudes towards fatness as expected and, in some cases, indices of these attitudes wors ened. Results suggest that attitudes towards obesity and fatness may be somewhat robust and resistant to change, possibly suggesting a central and not peripheral processing route for their formation.

Keywords

counter-conditioning

attitude strength

obesity

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The authors declare no potential conflict of interests.

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