Can Negative Stereotyping of Obesity in Children Be Reduced by Contact - Research Proposal Example

Can negative stereotyping of obesity in children be reduced by contact? Introduction Theory Obese people are highly stereotyped negatively (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Obese people are usually characterized by adults by use of negative attributes such as unattractive, sloppy, unhappy, lazy and unpopular. Just like adults, children also adopt such attributes when describing obese individuals (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). Studies have indicated that children rank obese kids as being unlikeable even behind physically handicapped children. Other studies indicate that obese children are described by children aged as young as 3 years as being lazy, unattractive, unhappy, and less smart. The negative stereotyping to obese people is less influenced by the age, gender and weight of the child according to these studies (Gailliot, Peruche, Plant & Baumeister, 2009). Being stereotyped negatively can impact negatively on peer acceptance and psychological health of obese children (Puhl & Brownell, 2003). Some studies have indicated for instance that obese kids are not liked as playmates by other children of average weight (Crisp, & Dominic, 2008). The studies also indicate that obese children perceive themselves as having lower self-concept and being depressed (Ebbeling, Pawlak, & Ludwig, 2000). Another study showed that obese children have low self-esteem (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Few studies have tried to reduce negative stereotyping against obese children in spite its negative impact (Corcoran, Hundhammer, & Mussweiler, 2009). The causes of obesity have been cited as being one of the causes of negative stereotyping. Even though genetic factors and metabolic factors have increasingly been implicated to cause obesity, many people believe that obesity is caused majorly by overeating and lack of exercise (Crisp, & Dominic, 2008). Thus, the attribution of obesity to controllable cause results in affective comments being made in reference to obese individuals and negative judgments (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Studies have positively affirmed that negative stereotyping toward obese individuals is related to what people perceive that obese individuals have control over their weight (Pearce, Boergers, & Prinstein, 2002). A study aimed at reducing negative stereotyping against obese people by changing the believes of adults about the causes of obesity through educating participants that obesity is caused by physiological, genetic and socio-cultural factors reduced negative attitude of adults about obese people (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). A related study targeting children, which stressed the influence of genetic and metabolic factors, found that there was a significant reduction in negative stereotyping and belief of controllability of obesity among children who were educated as compared to control group (Gailliot, et al., 2009). In addition, studies have found out that computer mediated communication inherently inhibits the reduction of stereotypes (Corcoran, Hundhammer, & Mussweiler, 2009). Based on this finding, it is probable that contact can reduce stereotypes since computer communication discourages personal contact (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Various studies have also indicated that intergroup contact through school integration helps to exclude and reduce prejudice and negative stereotyping (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). These studies have indicated that racially integrated student body helps to obtain cross-racial understanding, which could reduce harmful stereotypes and bias (Gailliot, et al., 2009). These studies found out that contact enhances skills for relating to students of other racial and ethnic groups through practice (Puhl & Brownell, 2003). The purpose of this study is to attempt to reduce negative stereotyping of obese children by increasing contact between obese kids and children with average weight (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The study will be designed to remove the belief that obese children overeat and are lazy. Just like in studies related to racial stereotyping, it is expected that contact between obese and non-obese kids will help in reducing negative stereotyping (Gailliot, et al., 2009). Hypothesis Contact between obese and non obese children reduces negative stereotyping of obesity Materials and methods The study This study is an experimental study which will involve experimenting contact between obese and non obese kids and employ questionnaires for data collection purposes. Participants The participants in this study will include children grades 4-6 whose ages range from nine to twelve years. The study targets to recruit forty-two children. A third of those to be recruited will be expected to be obese. The study will be carried out in one state primary school located in Northern territory, Australia. Ethical issues Since this study will involve human participants an informed consent will be sort prior to participation. Since the participants will be children, an informed consent will be sort from their parents. Participation will be strictly voluntary and a participant will be at liberty to withdraw from the study at any time without having to give a reason for doing so. Procedure Negative stereotyping and controllability of obesity will be measured among the participants by administration of a questionnaire containing these measures (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The questions and instructions for filling the questionnaire will be read out aloud and explained to participants prior to being filled. In order to ensure that the attitudes of obese kids is not confused with that of children with average weight, obese kids will be administered with a questionnaire printed on paper with different colour (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). This will be done in the first two weeks of the term. The children will then be assigned to one of two conditions one week after filling the questionnaire. The two groups will be control group and the intervention group. The intervention group will consist of all obese children and an equal number of children with average weight. The control group will consist of children with average weight only (Gailliot, et al., 2009). The class teacher and physical education teachers will be asked to assist in implementation of the study. Class teachers will be asked to ensure that each of the children with average weight in the intervention group sits next to an obese kid in class while those in control group will be asked to chose where they want to sit (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). In addition, teachers will be asked to group obese kids in the study with children with average weight in the intervention group together while those in control group will be expected to decide where they wish to be grouped. The Physical education teacher will be asked to group obese kids together with children in intervention group in all activities requiring teamwork (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). A CCTV (closed circuit television) camera will be mounted in each class to record the way children in each group behave. A video will also be taken to record the behaviour of the kids during the physical activity period. The children in intervention group will also be expected to take their meals together with video clips of how they behave being taken occasionally (Gailliot, et al., 2009). The children will be provided with more than enough food during mealtime and observed through CCTV mounted in dining area. Another questionnaire will be administered to measure stereotyping and controllability of obese at the end of four weeks after the start of treatment (intervention). Prior to completion of the questionnaire, the questions and instructions will be read aloud (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). After completion of the questionnaire, the children will be debriefed on the need to associate with one another in spite their weight. Questionnaire A single questionnaire will be used in the study. The questionnaire will be designed to prompt the presence of stereotyping of weight. The participants will be presented with Tiggemann and Wilson-Barrett's silhouette drawings of an obese and normal-weight child side-by-side. They will then be asked to indicate which of the two drawings they think are more confident, healthier, friendlier, smarter, lazier, happier, and more attractive, want to play with, works harder, like the best, and be friends with (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The participants will also have an option of choosing it to ensure that demand characteristics do not totally determine stereotyping. Systematic biasness will be avoided by swapping figures so that the normal-weight drawing will be presented as the left figure in half the questionnaires and as the right figure in the other half. The figures in the questionnaire will be given names, which will be different from any of the names of the participating children in Grades 4–6. Each of the names will be associated with the normal-weight figure for half of the questionnaires and the obese figure for the other half. In addition, the names and clothing on the figures will be modified during the second administration of the questionnaire to encourage generalization (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). A score of 1 will be given to each negative stereotyping response and 0 to each non-negative stereotyping response for each of the 11 items of the stereotyping measure in the first section of the questionnaire. These scores will be summed to form a scale ranging from 0 to 11. The reliability of results will be calculated using the Kuder–Richardson's formula (Gailliot, et al., 2009). Variables The stereotyping of obese children will be the dependent variable. The independent variable will contact with obese children. Anticipated results The study is aimed at establishing whether contact with obese children reduces negative stereotyping among other children with average weight. To investigate whether contact reduces negative stereotyping; a repeated measure of MANOVA will be performed with stereotyping of obese children as the dependent variable (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The repeated measure will be time of testing which will comprise of the scores from the first administration of questionnaire and the second (Corcoran, Hundhammer, & Mussweiler, 2009). The independent variable will contact with obese children. Interpretation of results The means, standard deviations and difference score for the assessment of negative stereotyping for the first and the second time of questionnaire administration will be determined (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). A negative difference score will be an indication of reduced stereotyping while an increase in difference score will be an indication of an increased stereotyping (Gailliot, et al., 2009). It is expected that contact with obese children will reduce negative stereotyping. Potential implication of the study This study aims at establishing the impact of contact with obese children among their peers on negative stereotyping (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The study participants will include obese and non-obese kids and all obese kids will be included in the intervention group together with an equal number of non-obese kids (Crisp, & Dominic, 2008). The remaining control group will be made up of non-obese kids. It is expected that contact with obese kids will reduce negative stereotyping of obese kids. Previous studies have indicated that changing beliefs about controllability of obesity reduces negative stereotyping (Corcoran, Hundhammer, & Mussweiler, 2009). In addition, studies have found out that computer mediated communication inherently inhibits the reduction of stereotypes. Based on this finding, it is probable that contact can reduce stereotypes since computer communication discourages personal contact (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Various studies have indicated that intergroup contact through school integration helps to exclude and reduce prejudice and negative stereotyping. These studies have indicated that racially integrated student body helps to obtain cross-racial understanding, which could reduce harmful stereotypes and bias (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). These studies found out that contact enhances skills for relating to students of other racial and ethnic groups through practice (Gailliot, et al., 2009). Just as in racial studies, it is expected that contact between obese kids and non-obese kids will help to reduce negative stereotyping. Such contacts are expected to help kids to acquire skills needed to relate with obese kids and thus their acceptability within different groups in school. If this study establishes that negative stereotyping can be reduced by contact then this could inform school policy makers to encourage contact in addition to integrating education about the etiology of obesity in relation to its controllability. Limitations This study will however have various limitations. First, since the study will be carried out a single institution, it is unlikely to reflect what will happen in another setting (Wardle, 2005). Thus, the study results may not be conclusive to be generalized to the whole of the population. Another limitation of the study is that it involves children who are easy to change their attitudes unlike adults who are often difficult to change. Thus, what might be established among children might not apply to adults (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). Thus, future studies need to involve a wider number of schools both private and state schools to come up with results that can be generalized. In addition, another study involving adults only and another involving both children and adults will need to be undertaken in future to reduce biasness that might arise in this present study (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). Future directions If this study successful indicates that contact reduces negative stereotyping of obesity, we expect that other studies targeting other negative stereotyping such as race, ethnicity and gender could be conducted in future to determine the impact of contact on such stereotyping. We also expect that the results of this study will inform researchers to carry out related studies on a wider scale, that is, involving more participants and from various settings. We also expect that a related study targeting a different age group could be carried out in future to see if results could be replicated in different age groups. Conclusion This study aims at establishing whether contact between obese and no obese children in grade 4 to 6 can help to reduce negative stereotyping of obesity. Based on previous studies that intergroup contact help to reduce harmful stereotyping and that computer based communication makes it difficult to reduce stereotyping, it is expected that contact between these two groups will reduce negative stereotyping. The study will employ questionnaires for collection of data and it will be analysed using MANOVA. If this study establishes that negative stereotyping can be reduced by contact then this could inform school policy makers to encourage contact in addition to integrating education about the etiology of obesity in relation to its controllability. However, the results of this study will be limited by the use of a single school and children only in the study. in spite this, the study is expected to inform further studies that may involve a larger group of schools and different groups of individuals with different age groups. References Husnu, S., & Crisp, R. (2010). Elaboration enhances the imagined contact effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(6), 943-950 Pettigrew, T., & Tropp, L. (2008). How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic tests of three mediators. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38(6), 922-934 Gailliot, M., Peruche, B., Plant, E., & Baumeister, R. (2009). Stereotypes and prejudice in the blood: Sucrose drinks reduce prejudice and stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(1), 288-290 Crisp, R., & Dominic, A. (2008). Improving intergroup attitudes and reducing stereotype threat: An integrated contact model. European Review of Social Psychology, 19, 242-284 Corcoran, K., Hundhammer, T., & Mussweiler, T. (2009). A tool for thought! When comparative thinking reduces stereotyping effects. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 1008-1011 Wardle, J. (2005). The impact of obesity on psychological well-being. Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 19(3), 421-440 Ebbeling, C., Pawlak, D., & Ludwig, D. (2000). Childhood obesity: public-health crisis, common sense cure. The Lacet, 360(9331), 473-482 Puhl, R., & Brownell, K. (2003). Psychosocial origins of obesity stigma: toward changing a powerful and pervasive bias. Obesity Reviews, 4(4), 213-227 Pearce, M., Boergers, J., & Prinstein, M. (2002). Adolescent Obesity, Overt and Relational Peer Victimization, and Romantic Relationships. Obesity Research, 10, 386–393 Puhl, R., & Brownell, K. (2003). Ways of coping with obesity stigma: review and conceptual analysis. Eating Behaviors, 4(1), 53-78 Read More

These studies found out that contact enhances skills for relating to students of other racial and ethnic groups through practice (Puhl & Brownell, 2003). The purpose of this study is to attempt to reduce negative stereotyping of obese children by increasing contact between obese kids and children with average weight (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The study will be designed to remove the belief that obese children overeat and are lazy. Just like in studies related to racial stereotyping, it is expected that contact between obese and non-obese kids will help in reducing negative stereotyping (Gailliot, et al., 2009). Hypothesis Contact between obese and non obese children reduces negative stereotyping of obesity Materials and methods The study This study is an experimental study which will involve experimenting contact between obese and non obese kids and employ questionnaires for data collection purposes.

Participants The participants in this study will include children grades 4-6 whose ages range from nine to twelve years. The study targets to recruit forty-two children. A third of those to be recruited will be expected to be obese. The study will be carried out in one state primary school located in Northern territory, Australia. Ethical issues Since this study will involve human participants an informed consent will be sort prior to participation. Since the participants will be children, an informed consent will be sort from their parents.

Participation will be strictly voluntary and a participant will be at liberty to withdraw from the study at any time without having to give a reason for doing so. Procedure Negative stereotyping and controllability of obesity will be measured among the participants by administration of a questionnaire containing these measures (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). The questions and instructions for filling the questionnaire will be read out aloud and explained to participants prior to being filled. In order to ensure that the attitudes of obese kids is not confused with that of children with average weight, obese kids will be administered with a questionnaire printed on paper with different colour (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008).

This will be done in the first two weeks of the term. The children will then be assigned to one of two conditions one week after filling the questionnaire. The two groups will be control group and the intervention group. The intervention group will consist of all obese children and an equal number of children with average weight. The control group will consist of children with average weight only (Gailliot, et al., 2009). The class teacher and physical education teachers will be asked to assist in implementation of the study.

Class teachers will be asked to ensure that each of the children with average weight in the intervention group sits next to an obese kid in class while those in control group will be asked to chose where they want to sit (Husnu, & Crisp, 2010). In addition, teachers will be asked to group obese kids in the study with children with average weight in the intervention group together while those in control group will be expected to decide where they wish to be grouped. The Physical education teacher will be asked to group obese kids together with children in intervention group in all activities requiring teamwork (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008).

A CCTV (closed circuit television) camera will be mounted in each class to record the way children in each group behave. A video will also be taken to record the behaviour of the kids during the physical activity period. The children in intervention group will also be expected to take their meals together with video clips of how they behave being taken occasionally (Gailliot, et al., 2009). The children will be provided with more than enough food during mealtime and observed through CCTV mounted in dining area.

Another questionnaire will be administered to measure stereotyping and controllability of obese at the end of four weeks after the start of treatment (intervention).

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