Investigating the Phenomenon of Obesity Stigma among 15-44 Year old women in Yazd

Stigma is an insidious social stress which is intertwined with an indefinite number of attributes, conditions, health status and social groups dependent on the social context and situation. The phenomenon which firstly is conceived in one’s mind and would be born in the arena of mutual interaction and then would expand its realm based on its growth conditions’ being provided and regarding the culture and values dominated over the society and would march on different realms. Blatant biases which are imposed on obese people and discrimination which is practiced against them regarding different fields indicate obesity crawling into the house of stigma particularly for women because of too much emphasis of the consumer society on women’s physical attractiveness.The objective of the present study is to investigate the factors affecting the weakness and severity of internalized obesity stigma in women. This study, employing survey method and quota sampling, investigates 380 15-44 year old women in Yazd by questionnaire and SPSS and Amos Graphics software programs. By referring to the ideas of Goffman, Giddens, Festinger’s social comparison, this study is to investigate the influence of variables of self-esteem, social comparison, the influence of family and friends, the extent of use and the type of communication media and also BMI and education and age on the amount of internalized obesity stigma in women. The results of this study show that the variable of social comparison is the best predictor of obesity stigma in women and BMI for evaluating obesity stigma is standing in the second rank.