Ildikó Papp1, Edit Czeglédi2, Ferenc Túry1

1Semmelweis University2Eötvös Loránd University

Jubiläumskongress Essstörungen 2010/Jubilee-Congress on Eating Disorders 20101

Paper read at the Jubilee Congress on Eating Disorders 2010, The18th International Conference, October 21-23, 2010, Alpbach, Tyrol, Austria

Western societies: negative attitudes towards obesity from early childhood.Negative prejudice and discrimination mayhave a deleterious effect on the mental and somatic health of overweight children. Assessing the type and extent of the stigmatization may be crucial in the development of adequate intervention programs.

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Development of the Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire.

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Study design: cross-sectionalParticipants:

370 students (145 boys and 225 girls)10-15 years of age (Mage= 12.8 years, SD=1.14Mbody mass index= 19.3, SD=3.14). 42% in the capital city, 4% in rural cities, 24% in villages.

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Children had to rate the four figures on the following questionnaires:

Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire:

1. social subscale 2. academic subscale3. recreational subscaleVisual Analogue Scale Adjective Checklist

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Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ-HU):

Morgan’s Shared Activities Questionnaire (Morgan, 1996).24 direct items

Three subscales (8-8 items):Social subscale: I would go with him/her to school with pleasure.”Academic subscale: „I would prepare with him/her the match homework with pleasure.”Recreational subscale: „I would spend my free time with him/her with pleasure.”

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„Yes, maybe, or no”.Higher scores reflect a greater willingness to engage in activities with the target.Visual Analogue Scale (VAS; Latner et al., 2007)Adjective Checklist (Greenleaf et al., 2006): 18 positive adjectives (e.g., happy, friendly, busy) and 18 negative adjectives (e.g., unhappy, unfriendly, lazy).

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I. The psychometric analysis of theShared Activities Questionnaire

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Fit indices Normal weight boys

Normal weight girls

Obese boys Obese girls

χ2 (CMIN) 535.9 728.3 674.2 655.7Degrees of freedom

(DF) 249 249 249 249

CMIN/DF 2.152 2.925 2.707 2.633TLI 0.906 0.909 0.903 0.922CFI 0.922 0.925 0.919 0.935

RMSEA 0.056 0.072 0.068 0.067CI90 RMSEA 0.049–0.062 0.066–0.078 0.062–0.074 0.060–0.073

Number of items with low factor load

(<0.5)1 0 0 0

Range of factor loads 0.42–0.76 0.64–0.84 0.60–0.82 0.61–0.83

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Normal weight boy

Normal weight girl

Obese boy Obese girl

Social subscale

Cronbach’salpha

0.87 0.93 0.90 0.93

Range of item-total correlation

0.2–0.68 0.63–0.80 0.61–0.76 0.64–0.78

Academic subscale

Cronbach’salpha

0.83 0.91 0.89 0.91

Range of item-total correlation

0.41–0.70 0.63–0.76 0.61–0.76 0.61–0.79

Recreational subscale

Cronbach’salpha

0.85 0.92 0.89 0.91

Range of item-total correlation

0.47–0.68 0.60–0.79 0.56–0.74 0.57–0.80

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Adjective Checklist Visual Analogue Scale

Normal weight boys 0.36* 0.65*

Obese boys 0.54* 0.62*

Normal weight girls 0.51* 0.65*

Obese girls 0.59* 0.68*

*p<0.001

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II. The confirmation of attitudes towards obesity

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Mean SD Friedman test

Tukeytest

Cohen d

Social subscale

Normal weight boy 6.6 4.38

χ2(3)=313.6

(p<0.001)

T(1080)=12.69 (p<0.01)

0.51Obese boy 4.3 4.33

Normal weight girl 9.7 5.04 T(1080)=25.06 (p<0.01)

1.02Obese girl 4.7 4.66

Academic subscale

Normal weight boy 6.9 4.18

χ2(3)=223.5

(p<0.001)

T(1083)=9.16 (p<0.01)

0.33Obese boy 5.4 4.53

Normal weight girl 9.4 4.97 T(1083)=19.27 (p<0.01)

0.73Obese girl 5.8 4.84

Recreational subscale

Normal weight boy 5.6 4.12

χ2(3)=399.5

(p<0.001)

T(1095)=19.07 (p<0.01)

0.64Obese boy 3.1 3.77

Normal weight girl 8.5 5.11 T(1095)=27.81 (p<0.01)

1.04Obese girl 3.7 4.16

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6,6

4,3

9,7

4,7

6,9

5,4

9,4

5,85,6

3,1

8,5

3,7

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Average weightboy

Obese boy Average weightgirl

Obese girl

Mea

n

Social subscale Academic subscale Recreational subscale

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The confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothetical structure of the Hungarian version of the Shared Activities Questionnaire.

Internal consistency was satisfactory.

SAQ-HU showed moderate and strong, positive, linear connection with further measurements in this study.

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There is a significant negative attitude towards obesity among children .The participants showed significantly less

willingness to engage in social, recreational, and academic activities with obese vs. normal weight peers.SAQ-HU is a promising measurement tool toassess attitudes towards obesity.The involvement of the questionnaire in further studies is suggested.

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Greenleaf C., Chambliss H., Rhea D. J, Martin S. B, Morrow J. R. (2006): Weight Stereotypes and Behavioral Intentions toward Thin and Fat Peers among White and Hispanic Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39: 546–552.Kline R. B. (2005): Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: The Guilford Press.Latner J. D., Simmonds M., Rosewall J. K., Stunkard A. J. (2007): Assessment of obesity stigmatization in children and adolescents: Modernizing a standard measure. Obesity, 15:3078–3085.Morgan, S. B., Walker, M., Bieberich, A. A. (1996): The Shared Activity Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.

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