Explicit and implicit attitudes towards obesity in physical education students

Negative attitudes towards obese people constitute a risk factor for their participation in, and adherence to, programmes involving lifestyle changes. This work studied the attitudes of Physical Education students in Ecuador towards obesity. Their attitudes were compared by gender and semesters. The sample in this study consisted of 80 Physical Education students between 18 and 33 years old. Two questionnaires were given - the Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire, which measures explicit attitudes toward obesity in three subscales: dislike, fear of gaining weight and lack of willpower; and the Anti-fat Implicit Association Test: to measure implicit attitudes. The main results show evidence of negative explicit and implicit attitudes toward obesity across the study sample. Moreover, the results indicate that the female population has a greater fear of gaining weight than the male population. The year of studies was not found to be a distinctive factor for either implicit or explicit negative attitudes.