Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Weight-based stigma (WS) refers to widely held negative attitudes toward those living at higher weights and can include ones own negatively held attitudes toward those living at higher weights, how one reacts to overt messages of weight stigma and applies it to their own self-image, and actual experiences of weight discrimination. Preliminary research indicates that exposure to WS can be especially detrimental in youth physical and psychological wellbeing. Moreover, young individuals who experience WS may be more susceptible to engaging in maladaptive health-related behaviours, such as disordered eating, reduced physical activity, and substance use.The primary objective of this research is to provide clarity surrounding weight-based stigma in youth, particularly the mechanisms through which maladaptive health-related behaviours may arise. That is, I aim to examine the association between weight-based stigma and health-related behaviours among youth, including physical activity, disordered eating, and substance use (over and above BMI and sociodemographic characteristics); to investigate whether shame and the mechanism of weight-bias internalization mediate the relationship between weight-based stigma and health-related behaviours; and, to examine whether self-compassion and social-safenessmoderate these relationships.