Framing messages about weight discrimination: impact on public support for legislation.

Objective: To assess the public support for potential legislation to prohibit weight-based discrimination against obese individuals in the United States, and to examine whether certain message frames about weight discrimination influence public support.

Design: Participants were randomly assigned to read one of the four paragraphs that framed the topic of weight discrimination in a distinct way (or a control condition with no paragraph). Participants were then asked to indicate their level of support for six antidiscrimination laws.

Subjects: A national sample of 1114 participants (48% women, 52% men), mean age 44.78 years (s.d. = 15.93).

Results: There was moderate support for several laws to prohibit weight-based discrimination, but gender differences were observed across experimental conditions indicating that some message frames may increase support for certain laws among women, but not men. However, message frames had no effect on support for laws with specific provisions to prohibit weight discrimination in the workplace, suggesting that public support for these particular legal measures is consistent and high (65% of men and 81% of women expressed support) regardless of how the issue of weight discrimination is framed to the public.

Conclusion: The present findings provide evidence of current levels of public support for legislation to prohibit weight-based discrimination, and offer potential ways for policy makers and interest groups to communicate messages about weight discrimination in efforts to increase support.