Young children's choices and thoughts about pro‐social behaviour towards others with overweight
Authors' conclusion
A better understanding of weight bias acquisition and variation between children will benefit those working in health care and educational settings. Future research should link with developmental theory, such as on social categorization and theory of mind.
Study context
- Population
- Children aged 4–6 years
- Participants
- 76 children
- Comparison
- Character with overweight vs healthy weight character
- Outcome
- Weight bias in pro-social choices (help, share, comfort, steal from) between characters differing in body size
Methodological detailsstory-based choice task, reasoning recorded and analysed
- Story-based choice task
- Reasoning recorded and analysed
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- Character with overweight helped first
- a third of the choices
Further findings
Children's reasoning for choices
- Weight bias not prominent in reasons given; most children not negative about body shape, weight or appearance
- Friendship choices mostly expressed positively to the character chosen
- Only a small minority explicitly negative about the character with overweight
Original publication
Young children's choices and thoughts about pro‐social behaviour towards others with overweight. Pediatr Obes. Published 19 May 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →