Exploring Health Education Instructors’ Perspectives and Approaches to Weight-Related Content

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.