Explicit attitudes toward obesity and life satisfaction in Chinese adolescents: the mediating role of weight dissatisfaction and moderating role of weight status

Previous research on attitudes toward obesity has mainly focused on the effects of people’s negative attitudes about obesity on others. However, it remains unclear whether people’s explicit attitudes toward obesity may influence their own life satisfaction. This cross-sectional study investigated whether and how individuals’ explicit negative attitudes toward obesity influence their own life satisfaction among Chinese adolescents. A total of 310 high school students from Hunan province, China, were invited to voluntarily complete a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, including the Attitudes Toward Obese Persons scale, the Fatness subscale of the Negative Physical Self Scale, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. We also collected participants’ self-reported body height and weight. The results revealed that adolescents with more negative explicit attitudes about obesity reported lower levels of life satisfaction, and that this relationship was mediated by their greater weight dissatisfaction. Additionally, weight status moderated the association between explicit attitudes toward obesity and one’s life satisfaction, whereby more negative explicit attitudes toward obesity predicted lower life satisfaction in adolescents with a body mass index one standard deviation higher than the mean (21.00 + 3.35), but not for adolescents with a body mass index one standard deviation lower than the mean (21.00-3.35). Implications of the current research and directions for future research are discussed. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023