Attitudes of Registered Dietitians toward Personal Overweight and Overweight Clients

Abstract

Studies show that students in health fields ( (1) Kaplan S.P. Thomas K.R. Rehabilitation counseling student perceptions of obese clients. Rehabil Couns Bull. 1981; 25: 106-109 Google Scholar , (2) Blumberg P. Mellis L.P. Medical students' attitudes toward the obese and morbidly obese. Int J Eat Dis. 1985; 4: 169-175 Google Scholar , (3) Peternelj-Taylor C.A. The effects of patient weight and sex on nurses' perceptions a proposed model of nurse withdrawal. J Adv Nurs. 1989; 14: 744-754 Google Scholar , (4) McArthur L.H. Nutrition and nonnutrition majors have more favorable attitudes toward overweight people than personal overweight. J Am Diet Assoc. 1995; 95: 593-596 Google Scholar ) and health professionals ( (5) Agell G. Rothblum E.D. Effects of clients' obesity and gender on the therapy judgments of psychologists. Prof Psychol Res Pract. 1991; 22: 223-229 Google Scholar , (6) Maddox G.L. Liederman V. Overweight as a social disability with medical implications. J Med Educ. 1969; 44: 214-220 Google Scholar , (7) Price J.H. Desmond S.M. Krol R.A. Snyder F.F. O'Connell J.K. Family practice physicians' beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding obesity. Am J Prev Med. 1987; 3: 339-345 Google Scholar , (8) Bagley C.R. Conklin D.N. Isherwood R.T. Pechiulis D.R. Watson L.A. Attitudes of nurses toward obesity and obese patients. Percept Mot Skills. 1989; 68: 954 Google Scholar , (9) Maroney D. Golub S. Nurses' attitudes toward obese persons and certain ethnic groups. Percept Mot Skills. 1992; 75: 387-391 Google Scholar ) in the United States have disparaging attitudes toward persons who are overweight. However, to our knowledge no study has assessed the attitudes of registered dietitians toward themselves when they perceive themselves to be overweight (hereafter referred to as personal overweight). Additionally, little is known about dietitians' attitudes toward overweight clients ( (10) Maiman L.A. Wang V.L. Becker M.H. Finlay J. Simonson M. Attitudes toward obesity and the obese among professionals. J Am Diet Assoc. 1979; 74: 331-336 Google Scholar , (11) Parham E.S. Flynn M.J. Frigo V.L. Perkins A.H. Weight control attitudes of dieters and change agents. J Home Econ. 1991; 83: 6-11 Google Scholar ).