Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

This study will examine the effectiveness of a brief self-compassion intervention on improving the ability of adults to cope with weight stigma. Participants will either complete a self-compassion writing exercise, or a neutral writing exercise in response to the recall of a negative experience related to their weight. Analyses will be conducted to investigate whether there are any group differences on a number of various health outcomes associated with weight stigma including eating disorder symptomatology, body dissatisfaction, depression, motivation to avoid exercise, internalization of societal ideals, fat bias, exercise behaviour, weight, and mood. It is hypothesized that the self-compassion intervention will lead to improved psychological and behavioural health outcomes (compared to participants in the control group who completed the neutral writing exercise), and that these improvements will be maintained at a 3-month follow-up.