Racial Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Obesity in Collegiate African American Women

To investigate relationships among racial discrimination, explicit racial identity, and obesity in young collegiate African American (AA) women aged 18-25.

Researchers recruited 136 women who self-identified as AA from a large Midwestern university. Racial discrimination (RD) was measured using lifetime overt experiences of discrimination, recent microaggressions, and vicarious RD directed towards close others. Explicit racial identity included dimensions of private regard, public regard, and centrality. Generalized obesity (elevated body mass index) and abdominal obesity (increased fat distribution in the midsection) were measured biometrically using kg/m² and waist circumference, respectively. Hierarchical multiple regression was employed to explore main and interaction effects.

After controlling for adverse life events and income, overt RD, recent microaggressions, and private regard directly accounted for variance in both BMI and waist circumference. Public regard and centrality moderated relationships between RD variables and waist circumference.

RD and racial identity accounted for up to 13% of variance in BMI and waist circumference in main effects models among young collegiate AA women. While obesity is a multifactorial phenomenon, racial discrimination and racial identity may affect observed racial disparities in obesity rates among young women.