Elementary School Students’ Perceptions of Overweight Peers

Abstract: Obesity is a growing epidemic in the United States. Children who are over-weight tend to participate in fewer activities, to withdraw from social situations, and to be less physically active than their normal-weight peers. Additionally, they have lower self-image and often suffer from depression. Research on children’s perceptions of over-weight peers has been sparse, with the few completed studies tending to focus on ado-lescents. In the current study, participants were asked to listen to four stories, two involving females and two involving males. Following each story, the children were pre-sented with obese and nonobese target pictures and asked to match the two gender-specific pictures of children with the “nice ” and “mean ” characters from the story. Results show an overall main effect, indicating that the number of “nice ” responses given to nonobese target figures was significantly greater than the number given to obese target figures. No gender effects were observed. Résumé: L’obésité est une épidémie croissante aux Etats-Unis. Les enfants excédents participent généralement aux moins d’activités, s’en vont des situations sociales, et ils sont moins actifs physiquement que les enfants du poids normal. En plus, ils ont l’estim