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Use of person-centred language among scientific research focused on childhood obesity

Claudia Fisch1, John Whelan1, Sheridan Evans1

  • 1Office of Medical Student Research, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

Pediatric Obesity
|December 20, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Most medical articles on childhood obesity use stigmatizing language, failing to adhere to person-centered language (PCL) guidelines. Adopting PCL is crucial to reduce harm and improve mental health outcomes for children with obesity.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Health
  • Medical Communication
  • Public Health

Background:

  • Stigma in children with obesity begins early, impacting mental health and quality of life.
  • Discriminatory language from peers, adults, and within medical literature exacerbates stigma.
  • Childhood obesity stigma negatively affects children's well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess adherence to person-centered language (PCL) in childhood obesity medical publications.
  • To identify the prevalence of stigmatizing terms in pediatric obesity research.

Main Methods:

  • Searched PubMed for childhood obesity articles published between 2018-2020.
  • Randomly selected articles from prominent childhood obesity journals.
  • Analyzed articles for predetermined stigmatizing terms and PCL adherence.

Main Results:

  • Only 21.7% of the 300 sampled articles adhered to PCL guidelines.
  • The terms 'obese' (70.33%) and 'overweight' (63.7%) were most frequently used.
  • Less common but still present stigmatizing terms included 'chubby', 'large', and 'fat'.

Conclusions:

  • A significant majority of childhood obesity articles fail to use person-centered language.
  • Advocating for PCL in the medical community is essential to mitigate the negative effects of stigma.
  • Increased editorial and publisher stringency is recommended to promote PCL adoption.
Abstract

Keywords:
childhood obesityperson-centred languagestigmaweight

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