Evaluation of the relationship between nutrition and dietetics students' attitudes to obese persons, fatphobia level, BODY appreciation and eating disorder

In this study, nutrition and dietetics students this study was conducted to determine their attitudes towards obesity, their level of fatphobia, their body body appreciation and eating disorder tendencies and to evaluate the relationship between them. Participants' general information, anthropometric measurements, educational information, physical activity and social media usage habits, attitudes towards obese persons (Attitudes Towards Obese Persons Scale-ATOP), fatphobia levels (Fatphobia Scale-F-Scale), body appreciation (Body Appreciation Scale-BAS-2), body images (Stunkard Figure Rating Scale-FRS) and eating disorder tendencies (Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire EDE-Q) were evaluated. The mean score of ATOP was 63.52±14.28, the mean score of F-Scale was 3.85±0.60, the mean score of BAS-2 was 40.24±8.19, and the mean score of EDE-Q was 1.9±1.39. A moderate and positive statistically significant relationship was found between EDE-Q and BMI (p<0.001). There was a weak and negative statistically significant relationship between the ATOP and the F-Scale (p<0.001). No correlation was found between ATOP and BAS-2 (p>0.05). A very weak and negative statistically significant correlation was found between the ATOP and the EDE-Q (p>0.05). A weak correlation was found between BAS-2 and EDE-Q (p<0.001). In this study, it was determined that attitudes towards obese persons do not affect body appreciation but it can be a risk factor for eating disorder and body appreciation level is in a relationship with eating disorder.