Effects of weight bias training on student nurse empathy: A quasiexperimental study

Investigation of the relationship between nursing students’ attitudes toward and beliefs about individuals with obesity, their empathy level, and body image flexibility.

“…As can be seen, the level of empathy appears to play an important role in developing positive perceptions about individuals with obesity. It is known that interventions aimed at improving positive attitudes toward obesity and empathy skills of nursing students who are health care providers affect them (Gajewski, Gajewski 2023; Molloy et al, 2023). Planning interventions such as reading an article about weight bias or watching a video for nursing students will increase their empathic skills while developing a positive attitude toward individuals with obesity.…”

Implicit weight stigma and bullying perpetration in college students: The mediating role of explicit weight stigma and moral disengagement and the moderating role of empathy

“…That is, high levels of empathy may buffer the transition from implicit weight stigma to bullying perpetration. Thus, empathy should be considered for inclusion in decreasing the implicit bias of perpetrators of weight stigma toward obese people's efforts and future research (Gajewski, 2022; Joslyn & Haider‐Markel, 2019). However, no study has examined the moderating effect of empathy on this relationship.…”

“…The nature of weight stigma may include two cognitive processes that manifest explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes (e.g., operated outside of conscious awareness) toward overweight and obese people (Cardinal et al, 2014; Phelan et al, 2015). Explicit weight stigma (fat phobia, antifat attitudes), one of the most frequent forms of bullying, can be defined as negative weight‐related attitudes, including stereotypes, prejudicial attitudes, and social distance directed toward individuals because of weight (Brown et al, 2022; Gloor & Puhl, 2016; Puddester & Wareham, 2013; Puhl et al, 2016), which may lead to adverse consequences for the perpetrator, such as stereotyping of the obese individual (Himmelstein & Tomiyama, 2015), more negative affect (Selensky & Carels, 2020), and discriminatory behaviors (Gajewski, 2022; Phelan et al, 2015). Despite some studies that have explored the effect of implicit and explicit weight stigma on bullying perpetration on campus, significant gaps remain.…”