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ABSTRACTSize acceptance movements challenge dominant weight-based health ideology by highlighting the oppressiveness of weight stigma, and the growing body of evidence supporting the complex nature of the weight-health relationship. The authors examined responses to these movements via a critical discourse analysis of focus group discussions with 21 female participants. Although generally sympathetic to the impact of weight stigma, participants frequently fell back on assumptions of weight as personally controllable and health as a moral obligation. These findings are discussed in terms of the authority and pervasiveness of public health messages and the barriers they present to size acceptance movements.

ABSTRACTIn recent years “obesity” and fat discourse in western digital media have matured; the complexity and conflict around fat embodiment are increasingly becoming part of everyday discourse. The present study explores key themes structuring this discussion. Popular online news aggregators were searched using the keywords fat, obese, and obesity. Fifty-nine articles and their comments were subjected to qualitative thematic analysis. Three thematic areas characterized the current discourse: concern, blame, and advice. Findings show how concerns about fat shaming are coming to be constructed as part of a dilemma in which concerns for the psychological well-being of fat people are set against the need to address the (putative) physical “harms” of “obesity.”

Personal trainers hold an important position as intermediaries between their clients and the vast amount of available information regarding health, fitness and body weight. Research to date has largely neglected to explore how they interpret and respond to their clients' goals. This paper reports interviews with 12 Australian personal trainers to investigate how they view the goals and motivations that their clients bring to training, and explore how they view their role in working with clients towards these goals. The personal trainers reported that their clients primarily came to them with weight loss goals, which the trainers understand as being motivated by aesthetic and social concerns. The only reservations expressed by trainers about their clients' weight loss goals concerned unrealistic timeframes; there were no other concerns expressed about the advisability or achievability of weight loss goals. When prompted, the trainers did acknowledge biological differences in clients' capacity for weight loss; however, this was strongly downplayed relative to the importance of diet, exercise and “mindset”. These findings suggest that personal trainers encourage the view that weight loss is straightforward and achievable for everyone who is sufficiently motivated and self-disciplined, despite the emerging scientific literature that suggests that weight loss goals, especially when motivated by appearance concerns, may undermine sustained exercise participation and other health-enhancing practices.

Framings of “obesity” have been associated with more stigmatization of fat people when weight is presented as the result of individual behavior. No research to date has examined how the effects of “obesity” framing interact with demographic characteristics of the fat person being evaluated. In this study, 198 adult men and women read information about “obesity” presented in one of three frames: a standard individual responsibility frame, a frame emphasizing the role of “obesogenic” environments such as industrial food production and urban design, and a frame claiming that the harms of “obesity” have been overstated, before reading a brief description of an fat target person that varied on socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Participants in the overstated framing condition rated the fat target as more competent and more moral compared to those in the individual responsibility condition, although this effect was restricted to high-SES targets. These findings are discussed in terms of the ideological functions of weight stigma.

Professional sport is often cited as an arena in which members of racial minorities can achieve high status and public success. In Australia, Aboriginal players are over-represented among the ranks of players in the highest levels of the nation's premier football code, the Australian Football League, yet are conspicuously under-represented in the formal honours awarded in this league. This paper examines the votes awarded during the AFL's ‘best and fairest’ competition during the 2001 season, and investigates the extent to which the votes awarded to players are accounted for by objective indicators of performance (match statistics). We found that most of the variance in votes could be attributed to objective match statistics, and there was no evidence of any effect of players' race on voting after match statistics were controlled. However, there was some indication that the opportunities for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal players may not be equivalent; no Aboriginal player was named in a ‘key position’ for any club in the 2001 season. The results are discussed in terms of the structural barriers that may explain why, despite over 100 years of acclaim on the field, Aboriginal players are still largely excluded from the most senior roles and responsibilities in their football clubs.

Body image and its relationship to women's well‐being has been researched extensively partially because of its links with dangerous dieting behaviors. However, research has been limited to investigating specific aspects of self‐concept and has failed to look at beliefs about the body in the more specific context of women's lives. The study extended research by examining the interaction between body image, goal striving, and well‐being in a clinical and nonclinical sample. It was hypothesized that the extent to which body image is a main goal in a woman's life and the extent to which she sees it to be related to striving for other life goals (embeddedness) would influence how strongly body dissatisfaction impacts on her well‐being. Women (N= 161) completed a questionnaire. Results indicated that embeddedness of body image moderated the relationship between body and life satisfaction for all women and that this effect was consistent over a 3‐month follow‐up. Clinical differences were found. Results highlight the importance of seeing body image in the context of women's lives, not just for those with eating disorders but for those without. Suggestions for therapeutic intervention are made.

The subject of body image in women has received considerable attention particularly with concern about its relationship to behaviours such as dieting. This study investigated the reported tendency of women to see thinness as desirable and to perceive themselves as fatter than others do. This tendency is inconsistent with the general findings on self-enhancement that show that people (including women) generally overestimate the extent to which they possess desirable characteristics. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether the tendency for women to report themselves as fatter than others perceive them is part of a general tendency to deprecate themselves on socially desirable qualities or whether this deprecation is restricted to body size. To investigate this, 29 female undergraduates in psychology participated in a study comparing own and others' perceptions of body size, attractiveness, sexiness, intelligence, and friendliness. Compared with the ratings of them given by others, women tended to make self-enhancing judgements of their attractiveness, sexiness, intelligence, and friendliness. This was not found for body size, however, for which self-ratings tended to be the same as those made by others. The failure to find self-enhancing judgements of body size is discussed in terms of the relatively unvarying standards presented to women concerning ideal body size compared to the more subjective standards used to evaluate other qualities.

This study identified illnesses Australians most feared getting, and determined whether there had been any changes between 1986 and 1993. An open‐ended question about illnesses was embedded in an omnibus face‐to‐face survey of representative samples of Australians (1986, n= 1213; 1993, n= 1268). Cancer was by far the most feared illness, with over 60 per cent of first mentions and around 80 per cent of first or second mentions. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and heart disease were the only other illnesses mentioned by more than 10 per cent of the sample as the first or second most feared illness. There were no differences across time in first mentions of these illnesses, but cancer had more mentions overall in 1993. Concern about cancer may have increased over the seven years. Mentions of dementia and blindness also increased across the two surveys.

Drug use is a major cause of preventable mortality and morbidity in Australia. Tobacco is by far the largest cause of drug‐related deaths. This paper reports changes in public awareness of the relative morbidity risks of different drugs between 1986 and 1993, a period of considerable activity for drug education and control. Broadly representative samples of Australians were surveyed in the two years using the same methods. Results indicate a significant increase in identification of tobacco as the largest cause of death, from a list of six drugs, although only a minority of respondents were correct in 1993. Alcohol was the second most identified drug, consistent with it being responsible for most drug deaths not attributable to tobacco. These results are discussed in the context of other studies. It is concluded that while improvement in knowledge has occurred, it is unlikely to be sufficiently strong to motivate action.