Determination of University students' bias against obesity

This survey was conducted to determine the bias and negative attitudes against obesity. Research data were obtained from 732 students studying Faculty of Health Sciences and Commercial Sciences in Baskent University. Demographic and anthropometric characteristics of the students were collected from questionnaire prepared by the researcher. GAMS-27 Obesity Bias Scale was used for determining obesity bias. In total 80 (10.9%) students declared that they have bias against obesity but according to the scale scores classification 403 (55.1%) students were tend to bias and 194 students (26,5%) were biased. When students who declared that they were biased were compared with the average scores they had from the scale, points difference between students described themselves as prejudiced and students described themselves as unprejudiced found statistically important (p=0.000). The average score of students who described themselves as prejudiced ( =72.5±10.40) was lower than the average score of students who described themselves as unprejudiced ( =79.0 ±11.20). Students who described themselves as overweight and students who were obese according to the Body Mass Index (BMI) classification ( =82.1±12.43) had the highest scores. According to the classification of scale points both in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Faculty of Commercial Sciences, the number of students who tended to prejudice against obesity (403-55.1%) were higher than the number of students who were prejudice against obesity (194-26.5%). As a result of the study, taking into account the possibility of university students' obesity bias to influence their professional skills in their future business life, it was asserted that there was a need for training interventions aimed to decrease obesity bias. KeyWords: Obesity, anti-fat attitudes, obesity bias, stigma.