Ildikó Papp1, Edit Czeglédi2, Ferenc Túry1 Semmelweis University 2Eötvös Loránd University 1 Paper read at the Jubilee Congress on Eating Disorders 2010, The 18th International Conference, October 21-23, 2010, Alpbach, Tyrol, Austria Jubiläumskongress Essstörungen 2010/ 1 Jubilee-Congress on Eating Disorders 2010
Western societies: negative attitudes towards obesity from early childhood. Negative prejudice and discrimination may have a deleterious effect on the mental and somatic health of overweight children. Assessing the type and extent of the stigmatization may be crucial in the development of adequate intervention programs. 2
Development of the Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire. 3
Study design: cross-sectional Participants: 370 students (145 boys and 225 girls) 10-15 years of age (M age = 12.8 years, SD=1.14 M body mass index = 19.3, SD=3.14). 42% in the capital city, 4% in rural cities, 24% in villages. 4
Children had to rate the four figures on the following questionnaires: Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire: 1. social subscale 2. academic subscale 3. recreational subscale Visual Analogue Scale Adjective Checklist 5
Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ-HU): Morgan s Shared Activities Questionnaire (Morgan, 1996). 24 direct items Three subscales (8-8 items): Social subscale: I would go with him/her to school with pleasure. Academic subscale: I would prepare with him/her the match homework with pleasure. Recreational subscale: I would spend my free time with him/her with pleasure. 6
Yes, maybe, or no. Higher scores reflect a greater willingness to engage in activities with the target. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS; Latner et al., 2007) Adjective Checklist (Greenleaf et al., 2006): 18 positive adjectives (e.g., happy, friendly, busy) and 18 negative adjectives (e.g., unhappy, unfriendly, lazy). 7
I. The psychometric analysis of the Shared Activities Questionnaire 8
Fit indices Normal weight boys Normal weight girls Obese boys Obese girls χ 2 (CMIN) 535.9 728.3 674.2 655.7 Degrees of freedom (DF) 249 249 249 249 CMIN/DF 2.152 2.925 2.707 2.633 TLI 0.906 0.909 0.903 0.922 CFI 0.922 0.925 0.919 0.935 RMSEA 0.056 0.072 0.068 0.067 CI 90 RMSEA 0.049 0.062 0.066 0.078 0.062 0.074 0.060 0.073 Number of items with low factor load 1 0 0 0 (<0.5) Range of factor loads 0.42 0.76 0.64 0.84 0.60 0.82 0.61 0.83 9
Social subscale Academic subscale Recreational subscale Cronbach s alpha Range of item-total correlation Cronbach s alpha Range of item-total correlation Cronbach s alpha Range of item-total correlation Normal weight boy Normal weight girl Obese boy Obese girl 0.87 0.93 0.90 0.93 0.2 0.68 0.63 0.80 0.61 0.76 0.64 0.78 0.83 0.91 0.89 0.91 0.41 0.70 0.63 0.76 0.61 0.76 0.61 0.79 0.85 0.92 0.89 0.91 0.47 0.68 0.60 0.79 0.56 0.74 0.57 0.80 10
Adjective Checklist Visual Analogue Scale Normal weight boys 0.36* 0.65* Obese boys 0.54* 0.62* Normal weight girls 0.51* 0.65* Obese girls 0.59* 0.68* *p<0.001 11
II. The confirmation of attitudes towards obesity 12
Social subscale Academic subscale Recreational subscale Mean SD Friedman test Normal weight boy 6.6 4.38 Obese boy 4.3 4.33 χ 2 (3) =313.6 (p<0.001) Tukey test T (1080) =12.69 (p<0.01) Normal weight girl 9.7 5.04 T (1080) =25.06 (p<0.01) Obese girl 4.7 4.66 Normal weight boy 6.9 4.18 Obese boy 5.4 4.53 χ 2 (3) =223.5 (p<0.001) T (1083) =9.16 (p<0.01) Normal weight girl 9.4 4.97 T (1083) =19.27 (p<0.01) Obese girl 5.8 4.84 Normal weight boy 5.6 4.12 Obese boy 3.1 3.77 χ 2 (3) =399.5 (p<0.001) T (1095) =19.07 (p<0.01) Normal weight girl 8.5 5.11 T (1095) =27.81 (p<0.01) Obese girl 3.7 4.16 Cohen d 0.51 1.02 0.33 0.73 0.64 1.04 13
12 10 9,7 9,4 8,5 Mean 8 6 4 6,6 6,9 5,6 4,3 5,4 3,1 4,7 5,8 3,7 2 0 Average weight boy Obese boy Average weight girl Obese girl Social subscale Academic subscale Recreational subscale 14
The confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothetical structure of the Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire. Internal consistency was satisfactory. SAQ-HU showed moderate and strong, positive, linear connection with further measurements in this study. 15
There is a significant negative attitude towards obesity among children. The participants showed significantly less willingness to engage in social, recreational, and academic activities with obese vs. normal weight peers. SAQ-HU is a promising measurement tool to assess attitudes towards obesity. The involvement of the questionnaire in further studies is suggested. 16
Greenleaf C., Chambliss H., Rhea D. J, Martin S. B, Morrow J. R. (2006): Weight Stereotypes and Behavioral Intentions toward Thin and Fat Peers among White and Hispanic Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39: 546 552. Kline R. B. (2005): Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: The Guilford Press. Latner J. D., Simmonds M., Rosewall J. K., Stunkard A. J. (2007): Assessment of obesity stigmatization in children and adolescents: Modernizing a standard measure. Obesity, 15: 3078 3085. Morgan, S. B., Walker, M., Bieberich, A. A. (1996): The Shared Activity Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN. 17
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