Medical students' attitudes towards overweight and obesity.

OBJECTIVE: Studies from the USA have identified medical students as a major source of stigmatizing attitudes towards overweight and obese individuals. As data from Europe is scarce, medical students' attitudes were investigated at the University of Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey containing an experimental manipulation consisting of a pair of vignettes depicting an obese and a normal weight 42-year-old woman, respectively. Vignettes were followed by the Fat Phobia Scale (FPS), a semantic differential assessing weight related attitudes. In case of the overweight vignette a panel of questions on causal attribution for the overweight preceded administration of the FPS. SUBJECTS: 671 medical students were enrolled at the University of Leipzig from May to June 2011. RESULTS: The overweight vignette was rated significantly more negative than the normal weight vignette (mean FPS score 3.65±0.45 versus 2.54±0.38, p