The link between college students’ perspectives on GLP-1 agonists and fat stigma

GLP-1 agonist use for weight loss in recent years has greatly expanded, and yet, little is understood about public perspectives of these drugs. The present study examines how fat stigma relates to perspectives of GLP-1 agonist use for weight loss and how these perspectives might differentially relate to stigma for individuals who are in diverse body sizes. We collected online data from 310 college students (Mage = 19.18, 62.3% women, 77.7% White). A multinomial logistic regression was conducted, predicting neutral/ambiguous, negative, and positive perspectives of GLP-1 use by internalized and externalized fat stigma, and weight groups, including interactions. The full model (χ2 = 45.50, p < .05) indicated there was a significant interaction of weight group by internalized fat stigma: for individuals who were “underweight” (B = -63.02, Exp(B) =4.27E-28, p < .05) increased internalized fat stigma predicted decreased odds of having neutral/ambiguous perspectives of GLP-1 use compared to negative perspectives. In contrast, a significant weight group by externalized stigma interaction suggested for individuals who were “overweight” (B = 1.68, Exp(B) =5.35, p < .05), increased externalized stigma predicted increased odds of having neutral/ambiguous perspectives of GLP-1 use compared to positive perspectives. These complex findings suggest that unique sources of fat stigma predict different perspectives of GLP-1 use for thin individuals compared to fat individuals.