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Exploring Health Education Instructors' Perspectives and Approaches to Weight-Related Content
Jenna Warnock1, Katie Wolsiefer2, Ayron E Walker3
1Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.
Objective:
To identify and compare pedagogical approaches to weight-related topics among US higher education instructors who teach health-related courses.
Design:
Survey, including an open-ended question, Universal Measure of Bias-FAT (UMB-FAT) and Beliefs About Obese People (BAOP) scores, collected responses from April to August 2023.
Setting:
Online, 53-item virtual platform survey.
Participants:
One hundred and twelve health profession instructors (aged ≥ 18 years; including nursing, dietetics, medicine, allied health, exercise science) participated and were selected by cluster sampling from 3 randomly selected colleges and universities per state.
Phenomenon Of Interest:
Instructors' pedagogical strategies and biases toward weight.
Analysis:
Sentiment and content analysis conducted by 2 researchers. Sentiments were weight-centric, mixed/hybrid (MH), or weight-inclusive (WI) with categories (weight metrics, topics and concepts, teaching strategies, and theories and constructs) and mapped for comparison. Scale scores (UMBFAT; BAOP) were analyzed for descriptive statistics.
Results:
Weight-centric approaches emphasized body mass index and dieting, WI emphasized behavior, social determinants, and Health at Every Size. Discussion-based teaching and bias-awareness content appeared more in MH and WI. Weight-inclusive instructors had lower UMB-FAT (1.58 ± 0.52) and BAOP (3.20 ± 0.97) scores.
Conclusions:
Teaching sentiment can determine how weight is framed. Findings highlight opportunities to investigate how WI curricula affect student weight attitudes and behaviors.
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