Weight Stigma
True or False: Only women experience weight stigma.
FALSE
What is your body’s biggest immune organ?
Your skin
What are active control groups?
A group that isn’t getting the actual treatment, but they are doing something else
How did writing about a trauma impact pulmonary health in patients with asthma?
Those who wrote about a trauma had better pulmonary function 4 months later
Is there a limit to the amount of income you earn to your happiness levels?
Yes! Around $75,000
What is one key takeaway about BMI and perception?
It’s not about your actual BMI, it’s how you perceive it
What are the two arms of the immune system? Describe them, and how stress impacts them?
Innate - fast and non-specific; stress increases the innate response
Adaptive - slow and specific; stress decreases the adaptive response
There are two categorizations of mind-body interventions. What are they, and what are some examples?
Traditional - cognitive behavioral therapy, support groups
Complementary - treatments added to traditional treatments, often based on ancient practices/traditions
There are three types of coping, what are they?
Problem-focused coping (change situations) - seeking information, problem solving
Emotion-focused coping (manage emotions) - release, distract, calm down
Cognition-focused coping (change thoughts) - change appraisal (denial, changing goals, social comparison) OR find meaning
True or False: Lottery winners are happier a year later than paralyzed accident victims.
FALSE
What results did we see in research regarding cortisol and weight stigmatism?
Stigmatized women who saw themselves as overweight had higher levels of cortisol
Experiencing stigmatizing events affected the cortisol system (morning cortisol, cortisol waking response, etc.)
Which matters more? Size of networks or subjective loneliness?
They both do, being high or low in loneliness matters depending on which network you’re in (small network, loneliness matters)
Describe these types of control groups: no treatment, usual care, standard of care, waitlist, and active.
No treatment - control group does nothing
Usual care - control group does their normal thing
Standard of care - control group gets the best medical treatment
Waitlist - control group does the intervention at the end of the study
Active - Control groups get either education (pamphlets) or a placebo (placebo acupuncture or yoga)
What were the two hypotheses? Which one was correct?
Hypothesis 1: Inhibiting things hurts you, so disclosing things helps you
Hypothesis 2: By helping people find meaning in their circumstances (THIS IS THE CORRECT ONE)
What matters more? How much money you spend or what you spend your money on?
What you spend your money on
Explain the Cyclic Obesity/Weight-Based Stigma model.
Weight stigma leads to stress, which then causes increased cortisol and increased eating, which leads to weight gain, and then creates weight stigma (vicious cycle)
Adaptive immunity has three types of processes/cells. What are they, and what are their nicknames?
Party in the lymph node - Those antigen-presenting cells will move around in the lymph node (like a nightclub) and bump into “people” and they show every cell a piece of the antigen and ask “do you know how to kill this?”, once they find a cell that knows how to kill it, that cell will replicate and make an army of itself
Snow White’s Evil Stepmother - B-cells use specially designed poison (antibodies) to kill their victims
Jack the Ripper - T-cells directly kill or eat their victims
How did mindfulness affect HIV progression?
The 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction maintains their T-cells over time, meaning that it helps combat HIV progression
How does finding meaning translate to better health?
Those who found meaning had better medication adherence
How is religion related to happiness?
Belonging to a religion may lead to more social support, and people can get meaning, leading to better health, but being prayed for does not increase health
What results were seen in the study that looked at the risk for obesity when they were told they were fat at 10 years old?
Girls who experienced weight stigma were 66% more likely to have obesity by age 19, whether they were thin or heavy to begin with
We also see a higher risk for eating disorders
For every additional
family member who said you were fat - 0.54 BMI points higher
other - 0.21 BMI points higher
Innate immunity has four types of cells. What are they, and what are their nicknames?
Natural killer cells = soldiers
Macrophages = cookie monsters
Antigen-presenting cells = tattle-tale club
Eosinophils, basophils, neutrophils = suicide bombers
How did hyperthermia affect depression?
Depression went down in the hyperthermia (warm, cozy) condition compared to the placebo
What was some evidence that supported the loss effect?
Days of disability
People who have lost a spouse are more likely to show disability, but this could be due to emotional problems
Symptom reports
People report more symptoms after experiencing loss, but this could be a reporting or noticing bias
Doctor/hospital visits
Widows visit the doctor four times more a year, but this could be because they stopped taking care of themselves, or were pressured to get checkups, or could be mental health visits
Mortality
Within 30 days of a spouse’s death, the risk of death for women jumped up to 61% and for men to 53%. Within a year of the spouse’s death, the risk of death for women jumped up to 17% and for men 21%, but this could be due to a shared environment
Immune system function
Study 1: Bereaved women had lower natural killer cell activity (less immune function) than non-bereaved women
Study 2: widows had lower natural killer cell activity one month after their husband’s death than one month before
What increases happiness?
Committing acts of kindness
Spending money on friends/gifts/charitable contributions
Cultivating a sense of gratitude
Visualizing the best possible self
Finding flow
Exercising
Using humor
Smiling anyway