Parents of Children With High Weight Are Viewed as Responsible for Child Weight and Thus Stigmatized

Abstract

Courts in seven U.S. states have removed children with “obesity” from parental custody until children could maintain “healthy weights.” These rulings—alongside qualitative reports from parents of children with high weight (PoCHs)—suggest that PoCHs are judged as bad parents. Yet little work has tested whether people genuinely stigmatize PoCHs or what drives this phenomenon. In three experiments with U.S. online community participants (N = 1,011; two preregistered), we tested an attribution theory model: Social perceivers attribute children’s weights to parents and thus stigmatize those parents. Experiments 1 and 2 support this model (across parent and child gender). Experiment 3 manipulated attributions of parental responsibility for child weight, revealing attenuated stigma with low attributions of responsibility. Findings are among the first to describe and explain stigma toward a large demographic (parents of children with obesity)—with real-world implications (e.g., for family separation, health care)—and may additionally illuminate the psychology underlying stigma toward parents of children with other potentially stigma-evoking identities.

Keywords

social perception weight stigma attribution obesity parents open data preregistered

I just think about what other people think of me as a mother . . . that people look at [my child] and think, “What does she feed him?”

—quoted by Jackson et al. (2007, p. 32)

In 2011, Ohio became the latest state—joining New York, California, Iowa, Indiana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas—to remove a child with “obesity”¹ from parental custody (Murtagh, 2007; Murtagh & Ludwig, 2011). These cases often involve children at extreme ends of the weight spectrum and are complicated by issues beyond children’s weights. However, they seem to suggest a more general psychological phenomenon whereby parents are blamed for their children’s weights and stigmatized because of it. This psychological model would fit with parents’ qualitative reports of being stigmatized for their children’s weights (e.g., Edmunds, 2005). Yet there is little empirical evidence for the basic phenomenon—that social perceivers genuinely view parents of children with high weight (PoCHs) as “bad” parents (Lee et al., 2022)—and we know of no work investigating why social perceivers might hold such stigma.

Here, we proposed and tested an attribution theory account for the stigmatization of PoCHs. We reasoned that, just as social perceivers blame adults with high weight for their (excess) weights and thus stigmatize them (Crandall, 1994; Crandall & Schiffhauer, 1998), social perceivers attribute children’s (excess) weights to their parents and thus stigmatize those parents.

Weight Stigma

More than 50% of American children have “overweight” or “obesity” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Like adults, these children experience painful stigma, stereotyping, and discrimination (e.g., Crandall, 1991, 1995; Link & Phelan, 2001; Ludwig, 2012; Rubino et al., 2020), including diminished social and educational opportunities and adverse health outcomes (Puhl & Brownell, 2003). Some parents stigmatize their own high-weight children, particularly daughters (Crandall, 1991; Kenrick et al., 2013)—perhaps facilitating children’s heightened depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation (Eisenberg et al., 2003; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2002).

In the past decades, social psychologists have explored why people—typically adults—with high weight are stigmatized. Of the numerous accounts, an attribution theory framework enjoys the greatest empirical support (for reviews, see Diedrichs & Puhl, 2016; Puhl & Brownell, 2003). On this view, social perceivers locate the causes of (excess) weight in people’s personal failings, using negative attributions about those people (e.g., laziness) to explain their “negative” outcomes (obesity; e.g., Crocker et al., 1993).² In particular, per the related justification and expression model of prejudice, the more people believe that an individual’s negative trait is under their control, the easier it becomes for people to stigmatize that individual (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003). In line with this, people’s (largely erroneous) beliefs in the controllability of weight facilitate their weight-based stigma (e.g., Frederick et al., 2016a, 2016b, 2020). Indeed, experimentally manipulating targets in ways that affect their control and blameworthiness—for example, describing a person whose high weight was caused by a thyroid condition (DeJong, 1993)—attenuates weight stigma (Crandall, 1994; Teachman et al., 2003).

This work suggests that people are stigmatized for their weights to the extent that they are deemed responsible for their weights. For adults, this generates straightforward predictions: People attribute adults’ obesity to their personal failings (e.g., laziness) and thus stigmatize them. But people do not deem children responsible for their own weights. Rather, people are more likely to attribute children’s obesity to external rather than internal causes (Hamlington et al., 2015; Sikorski et al., 2012). For example, 59% of respondents in an 800-person U.S. survey ascribed the rise in (children’s) obesity to parents (Lusk & Ellison, 2013).

Statement of Relevance

Childhood “obesity” remains an issue in the United States. In recent years, at least seven states have removed children with obesity from parental custody until the children could maintain “healthy” weights. Alongside parents’ qualitative reports, this suggests an underlying psychology of blame and stigma toward parents of children with high weight (PoCHs). To date, only a single study has empirically investigated whether people genuinely stigmatize PoCHs, and no work has systematically examined why such stigmatization might occur. Here, we proposed, tested, and support an attribution theory account, whereby PoCHs are stigmatized (deemed bad parents) to the extent that they are attributed responsibility for their children’s (excess) weights. The attributional psychology explored here might explain stigma toward PoCHs—including especially impactful stigma from medical professionals and family court judges—with profound consequences for parents and children alike. This model might also elucidate the stigmatization of parents whose children possess other stigmatized identity features.

(Why) Are PoCHs Stigmatized?

Despite qualitative reports from PoCHs describing perceived stigmatization owing to their children’s weights (Davis et al., 2018; Edmunds, 2005; Gorlick et al., 2021; Hamlington et al., 2015; Jackson et al., 2007; Turner et al., 2012; Zenlea et al., 2017) and other work on stigmatization of caregivers on account of their children’s various stigmatized identities unrelated to weight (e.g., Baudino et al., 2021; Kinnear et al., 2016), there were no empirical investigations of whether people stigmatized PoCHs until 2022. Lee et al. (2022) conducted a single, high-powered study with U.S. participants, finding that people viewed parents less favorably when their children were heavier than not.

Here, we (a) replicated Lee et al.’s (2022) findings that people stigmatize PoCHs, compared with parents of children with so-called average or healthy weight (PoCAs) and (b) tested our attribution account for what drives this. Specifically, we propose that, relative to PoCAs, PoCHs are attributed greater responsibility for their children’s (excess) weight and that these attributions drive stigma toward parents.

We also explored two additional possibilities. First, because child care and other household responsibilities (e.g., making family meals) often fall to mothers (Boero, 2009; Caplan, 1989; Caplan & Caplan, 2000; Friedman, 2015; Jackson et al., 2007; Ladd-Taylor & Umansky, 1998; Turner et al., 2012; Woolhouse et al., 2019), we tested whether mothers (vs. fathers) are attributed greater responsibility for children’s weights and are more stigmatized. Second, whereas we focused on the extent to which people stigmatize PoCHs in their roles as parents, people might also stigmatize these parents in general, owing to parents’ mere associations with their children (Lee et al., 2022; Neuberg et al., 1994; Pryor et al., 2012).

We conducted three experiments (two preregistered) with U.S. participants. Experiments 1 and 2 tested whether social perceivers stigmatize PoCHs (vs. PoCAs) and whether this is driven by attributions of parental responsibility for child weight. In Experiment 3, we presented descriptions of children with obesity that systematically varied the amount of responsibility for child weight that parents were attributed, thereby manipulating the proposed mediator to further test our model. Data and code are available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/9cges/?view_only=12c0bce306b943e3a7ece9798ae50e4a.

Experiment 1 (Preregistered)

Method

Participants

A power analysis suggested that 199 participants were necessary for 80% power to detect small to medium-size effects ( f = .20). Of 269 U.S.-residing participants beginning the survey on the CloudResearch platform, 254 participants (56.7% female; age: M = 41.91 years, SD = 13.44; 77.8% Caucasian, 9.9% Asian/Asian American, 4.1% or fewer reporting other races/ethnicities) passed attention checks, completed dependent variables, and were included in the analyses. Data collection for each experiment was of convenience samples and was completed when we reached the prespecified target number of participants. All work described herein was approved by the university’s institutional review board.

Procedure and design

Participants were asked to take part in a study on the accuracy of perceptions based on little information. Each participant was randomly assigned to view one of four stimuli describing and depicting a mother (Carol) or father (Tom) with an 8-year-old daughter (Emma); the daughter was described and depicted as having “obesity” or “average weight.” To accord with instructions to participants, each stimulus contained some information that was explicitly redacted (e.g., “Tom is a 34-year-old man living in [redacted]”); redacted information was unimportant to predictions and was kept constant across conditions (e.g., Krems et al., 2021; preregistration: 10.17605/OSF.IO/84TJ2).

Materials

Each stimulus described and depicted (a) the target (an average-weight man or woman of parenting age) and (b) their daughter (a prepubescent girl with either obesity—with weight located primarily in her abdomen—or average weight). Both the target (i.e., parent) and daughter were shown with their faces blacked out, following past research (Krems & Neuberg, 2021) and further enhancing our cover story (that participants were viewing real people whose privacy was protected via redacting textual information and blacking out faces; see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Mother and father with “healthy weight”; daughter with “obesity” (left) and daughter with “healthy weight” (right).

For example, participants seeing the father would have read the following:

Tom is a 34-year-old man living in [redacted], in the United States. He works as a [redacted], and, on his days off, his favorite thing to do is just [redacted]. He is married to a woman he met almost 10 years ago, named [redacted]. Tom is depicted below with their 8-year-old daughter, Emma. A professional body-rendering artist drew these pictures of Tom and Emma. Tom is a healthy weight for his age, sex, and height. Emma is clinically obese [a healthy weight] for her age, sex, and height. (Because these are drawings of real people, the experimental team has blacked out their faces.)

After stimulus presentation, participants were informed that they would rate this person on one or more of four domains—as a parent, as a romantic partner, as an employee, or in general. In reality, all participants rated the target (a) in general (to assess a general stigma-by-association account) and (b) in their role as a parent (to assess the focal dependent variable of parental stigma).

Measures

Focal dependent variable: parental stigma

Participants reported agreement with two face-valid items (“To what extent do you think that Tom is . . . a good parent?” “. . . a bad parent?”) on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all agree, 7 = very much agree). We subtracted ratings of “bad parent” from ratings of “good parent” to produce one measure of parental stigma (Krems & Neuberg, 2021); lower numbers indicate greater stigma. Findings reported below were replicated when using endorsement of only the “bad parent” item (see the Supplemental Material available online).

Proposed mediator: attributions of responsibility for child weight

Participants completed a modified budget allocation task, derived from an established paradigm from behavioral economics (Li et al., 2002; Neel et al., 2013; Williams et al., 2022). Participants were allotted 100 “responsibility points” to allocate across four factors ostensibly responsible for child weight: genetic factors, societal factors, parent behavior, and child behavior. The allocation of more points to a factor reflected greater attributions of responsibility for child weight to that factor. To obscure study aims, we had participants complete this same paradigm for child athletic prowess and academic success.

As another means to assess this proposed mediating variable, participants completed a measure adapted from Sikorski et al.’s (2012) work on factors perceived as driving childhood obesity. Participants reported how responsible for the child’s weight and appearance they believed parents to be via five items (e.g., “Carol is responsible for . . . her daughter’s weight”; α = .87–.88), believed the child to be via a similar five items (e.g., “Emma is responsible for . . . her weight”; α = .88–.91), believed culture/society to be via a similar five items (e.g., “Societal and cultural factors dictate Emma’s weight”; α = .87–.88), and believed genetics to be via two items (“Genetic factors are responsible for Emma’s weight”; α = .70–.77) on 7-point Likert-type scales (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). This measure produced null effects in Experiment 1, but we included it as explicitly exploratory in Experiment 2. Findings are reported in detail in the Supplemental Material.

Additional variables

We included several additional variables that were ancillary to focal hypotheses about the attribution theory model. Variable descriptions and related results are summarized below and reported in full in the Supplemental Material.

Low-quality parenting characteristics

Our attribution account would also predict that people attribute more negative parenting characteristics to PoCHs (vs. PoCAs). To assess this, we had participants rate their agreement with nine statements about parental behavior and attitudes (e.g., “Tom is . . . an overly indulgent parent”; “Tom is . . . a responsible parent” [reverse scored]; α = .83–.89) on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all agree, 7 = very much agree). People reported PoCHs as having more low-quality parenting characteristics than PoCAs, and this finding held regardless of parent or child gender.

General stigma

We also measured general stigma—stigma toward parents as people rather than specifically in their roles as parents—in two ways: (a) Participants reported feelings toward the target on a 10-point feeling thermometer (0 = cold, 10 = warm; e.g., Abelson et al., 1982). (b) Participants rated agreement with statements about liking and disliking the target, on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all agree, 7 = very much agree). The second operationalization of general stigma was computed by subtracting endorsement of disliking from liking (e.g., Krems & Neuberg, 2021). Note that general stigma was assessed prior to parental stigma to avoid the latter coloring the former. Across Experiments 1 to 3, participants reported generally liking PoCHs less than PoCAs.

Obesity-linked characteristics

A nuanced version of the stigma-by-association account might additionally imply that, even as parents were always depicted as having healthy weight across experiments, PoCHs might nevertheless be inferred to possess those negative characteristics stereotypically associated with obesity owing to their association with their daughter with obesity. To assess this, we had participants rate agreement with seven statements on a 7-point Likert-type scale (e.g., “Tom is . . . lazy”; α = .88; 1 = not at all agree, 7 = very much agree). To obscure study aims, we also included distractor inferences (e.g., “warmth,” “competence”). Supporting a general stigma-by-association account, participants rated PoCHs as having more obesity-linked characteristics than PoCAs.

We also included several exploratory measures about target parents (e.g., perceived ethnicity, body mass index or BMI)³ and participant individual differences (e.g., presence of children and children with obesity, BMI, Protestant work ethic; see Crandall, 1994), which were not analyzed here. Participants also completed common demographic items (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity).

Results

Parental stigma: Do people stigmatize PoCHs more than PoCAs?

Yes. A 2 (child size) × 2 (parent gender) analysis of variance (ANOVA) explored parental stigma and yielded a main effect of child size, F(1, 250) = 29.06, p < .001, η_p² = .104; people reported greater stigma toward PoCHs (M = 1.51, SE = 0.20) than PoCAs (M = 3.04, SE = 0.20). Neither parent gender nor the interaction reached significance (ps > .340). This effect held for both mothers (PoCHs: M = 1.66, SE =0.29; PoCAs: M = 3.16, SE = 0.28; p < .001, η_p² = .052, 95% confidence interval, or CI = [−2.29, –0.70]) and fathers (PoCHs: M = 1.35, SE = 0.28; PoCAs: M = 2.92, SE = 0.29; p < .001, η_p² = .058, 95% CI = [−2.36, –0.78]).

Proposed mediator

Do people attribute greater responsibility for child weight to PoCHs?

Yes—via the budget allocation measure. Because budget allocation outcomes are dependent—for example, budget points allocated to parental responsibility cannot also be allocated to child responsibility or vice versa—we followed established analysis procedures and analyzed only the outcome measure of interest (budget allocated to parental responsibility for child weight; e.g., Neel et al., 2013). We did this via a 2 (child size) × 2 (parent gender) ANOVA, which revealed only a main effect of child size, F(1, 240) = 8.95, p = .003, η_p² = .036; people attributed greater responsibility for child weight to PoCHs (M = 38.98, SE = 1.84) than to PoCAs (M = 31.27, SE = 1.81). Neither parent gender nor the interaction was significant (ps > .085). This effect was marginally significant for mothers (PoCHs: M = 40.75, SE = 2.60; PoCAs: M = 33.95, SE = 2.55; p = .063, η_p² = .014, 95% CI = [−0.37, 13.97]) and significant for fathers (PoCHs: M = 37.20, SE = 2.60; PoCAs: M = 28.60, SE = 2.55; p = .019, η_p² = .023, 95% CI = [1.43, 15.77]).

Might attributions of parental responsibility drive parental stigma?

Yes. Using PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2017) with 5,000 bootstrapped iterations to compute a bias-corrected 95% CI for the indirect effects, we found that the relationship between child weight and parental stigma is partially statistically mediated by attributions of parent responsibility (using the budget allocation paradigm; b = −0.21, SE = 0.11, 95% CI = [−0.46, −0.04]). The direct effect of child size on parental stigma remained significant (b = −1.31, SE = 0.29, 95% CI = [−1.88, −0.75]). Because we saw no differences of attribution of parent responsibility via the measure adapted from Sikorski et al. (2012), we did not explore that.

Experiment 2 (Preregistered)

Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 and also varied child gender.

Method

Participants

Of 561 U.S.-residing participants beginning the survey on CloudResearch, 516 participants (58.3% female; age: M = 41.18 years, SD = 13.09; 79.1% Caucasian, 6.4% Hispanic or Latinx, 5% Black or African American, 2.6% or fewer reporting other races/ethnicities) passed attention and bot checks and were included in the analyses. A sensitivity analysis suggested that this yielded 80% power to detect small effects ( f = .12).

Procedure and design

This study had a 2 (child size) × 2 (parent gender) × 2 (child gender) between-subjects design. Because the adapted measure from Sikorski et al.’s (2012) work produced null effects in Experiment 1, we reduced the number of items here and included it as an exploratory measure. Stimuli for sons came from the BODSS Figure Set and reflected prepubescent boys with abdominal obesity or average weight (Neuberg & Krems, 2016). Otherwise, all materials and focal measures were the same as in Experiment 1 (preregistration: 10.17605/OSF.IO/VPU9Z).

Results

Parental stigma: Do people stigmatize PoCHs more than PoCAs?

Yes. A 2 (child size) × 2 (parent gender) × 2 (child gender) ANOVA yielded a single main effect of child size, F(1, 507) = 66.27, p < .001, η_p² = .116 (other ps > .188). People deemed PoCHs to be worse parents (M = 1.75, SE = 0.13) than PoCAs (M = 3.29, SE = 0.14; see Table 1 and Fig. 2). This held regardless of parent and/or child gender.

Table 1.

Means for Parental Stigma and Results of Experiment 2

Target	Parental stigma	Is this target stigmatized more than the relevant PoCA?
Mother + daughter (PoCH)	1.61 (0.26)	Yes. F(1, 507) = 19.68, p < .001, η_p² = .037, 95% CI = [0.91, 2.36]
Mother + son (PoCH)	1.77 (0.27)	Yes. F(1, 507) = 22.50, p < .001, η_p² = .042, 95% CI = [1.05, 2.54]
Father + daughter (PoCH)	1.71 (0.27)	Yes. F(1, 507) = 11.32, p = .001, η_p² = .022, 95% CI = [0.54, 2.05]
Father + son (PoCH)	1.89 (0.26)	Yes. F(1, 507) = 14.15, p < .001, η_p² = .027, 95% CI = [0.69, 2.19]
Mother + daughter (PoCA)	3.25 (0.26)
Mother + son (PoCA)	3.57 (0.26)
Father + daughter (PoCA)	3.00 (0.28)
Father + son (PoCA)	3.33 (0.28)

Note: Standard errors are given in parentheses. CI = confidence interval.

Fig. 2.

Parental stigma as a function of child weight across four parent and child gender constellations (mother–daughter, mother–son, father–daughter, father–son). Lower numbers indicate greater parental stigma. Error bars represent standard errors.

Proposed mediator

Do people attribute greater responsibility for child weight to PoCHs?

A 2 (child size) × 2 (parent gender) × 2 (child gender) ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of child size, F(1, 493) = 3.89, p = .049, η_p² = .008 (other ps > .230). People attributed a greater amount of responsibility for child weight to PoCHs (M = 38.36, SE = 1.27) than PoCAs (M = 34.78, SE = 1.29).

Might attributions of parental responsibility drive parental stigma?

Yes. Using PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2017) with 5,000 bootstrapped iterations to compute a bias-corrected 90% CI for the indirect effects, we saw that the relationship between child weight and parental stigma was statistically mediated by attributions of parent responsibility for child weight (b = −0.06, SE = 0.04, 90% CI = [−0.139, −.006]). The direct effect of child size on parental stigma remained significant (b = −1.43, SE = 0.19, 90% CI = [−1.75, −1.12]).

Experiment 3

Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that PoCHs (vs. PoCAs) are attributed greater responsibility for children’s weights and thus stigmatized. Complementing that statistical mediation, Experiment 3 varied the characteristics of the child with obesity in ways that should affect attributions of parental responsibility for child weight and thus parental stigma. We predicted that, relative to the control (mother and child with obesity from previous experiments), parental stigma would be attenuated when (a) child obesity is described as owing to thyroid issues (an established manipulation for decreasing attributions of responsibility and weight stigma toward adults; DeJong, 1993) or (b) the child with obesity is described as an adult (i.e., 30 years old), whose parents would presumably be attributed low responsibility for their adult child’s weight.

Method

Participants

Of the 303 U.S.-residing participants beginning the survey on CloudResearch, 241 participants (62.2% female; age: M = 41.51 years, SD = 13.00; 73.4% Caucasian, 12.4% Asian/Asian American, 5.4 Black/African American, 4.1% or fewer reporting other races/ethnicities) passed attention checks, completed dependent variables, and were included in the analyses. Sensitivity analysis suggested that this yielded 80% power to detect medium effects ( f = .20) between any two conditions.

Procedure and design

Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the three child-with-obesity conditions. The adapted measure from the work by Sikorski et al. (2012) was not included. Otherwise, all focal measures were the same as in previous experiments.

The control stimulus was the same mother and daughter with obesity used in Experiments 1 and 2.

In the thyroid issue condition, the relevant portion of the stimulus text read, “Due to a thyroid condition, Emma is clinically obese for her age, sex, and height.”

In the adult child condition, the mother was described as a 56-year-old woman (instead of a 34-year-old woman) and depicted as a postreproductive woman with average weight. The daughter was described as a 30-year-old woman “clinically obese for her age, sex, and height” and depicted as a parenting-age woman with primarily abdominal obesity. Both figures came from the BODSS Figure set (Neuberg & Krems, 2016).

Results

Manipulation check

We first explored whether parents were attributed greater responsibility for children’s weights in the control versus the experimental conditions. We found a significant main effect of condition, F(2, 238) = 35.14, p < .001, η_p² = .228. Parents in the control condition were attributed greater responsibility for child weight (M = 35.35, SE = 1.97) than parents in the thyroid condition (M = 14.54, SE = 2.01) or the adult-child condition (M = 15.18, SE = 2.08; ps < .001). There was no significant difference in attributions between experimental conditions (p = .825).

Is stigma toward low-attribution-of-responsibility parents attenuated?

Yes. An ANOVA yielded a significant main effect of condition, F(2, 238) = 18.06, p < .001, η_p² = .132. As predicted, people reported greater parental stigma in the control condition (M = 1.51, SE = 0.23) than in the thyroid condition (M = 3.49, SE = 0.24) or in the adult-child condition (M = 2.62, SE = 0.24, ps < .001). People also reported greater parental stigma in the adult versus thyroid experimental conditions (p = .010), which we had not predicted (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.

Parental stigma is attenuated when children with “obesity” are described as having thyroid issues or as adults themselves. Error bars represent standard errors. Lower numbers indicate greater parental stigma.

Additional analysis: might attributions of parental responsibility drive parental stigma?

Using PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2017) with 5,000 bootstrapped iterations to compute a bias-corrected 95% CI for the indirect effects, we explored whether attributions of parent responsibility for child weight (our manipulation check) would again mediate the relationship between multicategorical conditions—specifically between the control condition (child with obesity) and the two experimental conditions (both theorized to diminish attributions of parental responsibility for child obesity)—and parental stigma. We found evidence for such statistical mediation (b = −0.64, SE = 0.21, 95% CI = [−1.10, −0.26]). The direct effect of child size on parental stigma remained significant (b = −1.34, SE = 0.35, 95% CI = [−1.55, −0.29]).

General Discussion

Findings (a) replicated Lee and colleagues’ (2022) first experimental work demonstrating that Americans stigmatize PoCHs. Here, across three experiments, participants stigmatized PoCHs more than PoCAs—regardless of parent or child gender. Findings (b) also extend previous work by empirically investigating a novel explanation as to why this occurs. Consistent with our attribution theory account, people attributed greater responsibility for children’s weights to PoCHs, and these attributions, in turn, drove parental stigma. In Experiments 1 and 2, inferences of parental responsibility statistically mediated the relationship between condition (child weight) and parental stigma. In Experiment 3, we manipulated this mediator; when people attributed less responsibility for child weight to parents, they stigmatized parents less. This supports broader attribution theory accounts for prejudice, in particular the related justification and expression model of prejudice (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003).

Not mutually exclusive with this attribution theory account, ancillary explorations additionally provide some support for a stigma-by-association account. Data suggest that PoCHs are also subject to more general stigma (e.g., via feeling thermometers) and are inferred to possess characteristics stereotypically associated with obesity (e.g., laziness), despite being depicted and described as healthy weight (see the Supplemental Material).

Implications, limitations, and future directions

The present findings align with parents’ qualitative reports of stigmatization due to their children’s weights (e.g., Zenlea et al., 2017) and with polls suggesting that Americans view parents as responsible for children’s obesity (e.g., Barry et al., 2012). Why might perceivers make these attributions in the first place? Clinical data suggest a kernel of truth. For example, parents can influence their children’s weights by playing a role in how much and what kinds of foods are available to their children, especially when those children are young (Clark et al., 2007; Golan, 2006; Klesges et al., 1991). Indeed, we know that parents can have huge effects on their children, and scholarship has thus understandably explored whether and how parents impact a range of child outcomes (e.g., weight, personality, antisocial behavior, academic achievement) via a range of mechanisms (e.g., attachment, epigenetics; see Gjonça & Zaninotto, 2008; Richardson et al., 2014; Rowe, 1990; Saunders, 1995).

Parental appraisals, then, must navigate the twin realities that (a) parental behavior might be central in preventing childhood obesity (e.g., Golan, 2006) and (b) any one child’s weight is unlikely to be due to parental choices alone. Further, whereas parental behavior might affect children’s weights, parental stigma is unlikely to be an effective lever on this front. Why? First, stigma is ineffective for facilitating weight loss; weight stigma is instead associated with multiple negative outcomes and might even facilitate weight gain (Brewis et al., 2018; Major et al., 2018; Tomiyama et al., 2018). Second, although the effects of parental stigma on children’s weights are unknown, there exist both long-standing reports of related parental stigma in the United States (Davis et al., 2018) and no evidence of decreasing childhood obesity. This stigma may be unjustified and ineffective.

Nevertheless, such attributions of parental blame and stigma have a long history in medicine and psychology (e.g., Jones, 1999)—as when the coldness of so-called refrigerator mothers was cited as the cause of their children’s autism (“Medicine: The Child Is Father,” 1960). Even as today’s experts might be less likely to “blame the parents” for children’s outcomes, the present findings would support the seemingly accepted wisdom that parents are inevitably judged for their children’s attributes traits and outcomes. Although we know of little work directly testing this, we speculate that to the extent social perceivers deem parents responsible for children’s traits and outcomes, they stigmatize—or, for positive traits and outcomes, potentially praise—those parents.

Such an attributional psychology could have serious implications. With respect to the present work, it could influence family court decisions to remove children from parental custody and impact how pediatricians treat parents (and thus children’s health care). More broadly, such parental stigma might detriment parents (e.g., internalization of negative parenting evaluations, detachment from parenting) and children (e.g., self-blame for parental stigma, disruptions of the parent-child bond; see Jackson et al., 2007). Indeed, one could imagine that the damage to parents of being blamed for the negative outcomes of their own cherished offspring—especially when those outcomes are not solely under parents’ own control—would be particularly insidious, with potential effects for parents’ well-being, interactions with their children, and/or future reproductive decisions.

Here, parents were depicted as being sizes (i.e., BMIs) described as “healthy” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This allowed us to isolate parental stigma owing to child size. However, children with high weight are more likely to have high-weight parents. Future work should explore the effects that both child and parental size have on parental stigma. For example, people might deem high-weight parents to be worse parents (but see Sacco et al., 2020), regardless of children’s weights. People might also attribute responsibility for children’s (excess) weights to parents who are themselves heavier and thus stigmatize those parents even more.

Future work should additionally parse the potentially distinct effects of the text (describing the child’s size) and visual manipulations employed in our stimuli because (a) different terms (e.g., “fat,” “high weight”) might evoke different reactions and (b) terms and images might also evoke distinct reactions. Moreover, these specific effects dealing with child weight should be examined across cultures—as should the potentially broader notion that parents are attributed responsibility for their children’s traits and outcomes, and that, in turn, parents are thus stigmatized (or praised) accordingly.

Conclusion

More than 50% of American children have overweight or obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Parents report being stigmatized for their children’s weights, and children with obesity have been legally removed from parental care in some instances, suggesting a psychology whereby social perceivers attribute responsibility for children’s (excess) weights to parents and, in turn, stigmatize those parents. Here, we found that (a) PoCHs (vs. PoCAs) are deemed “worse” parents—replicating the work by Lee et al. (2022)—and (b) this parental stigma is driven by attributions of parental responsibility for child weight.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221124951 – Supplemental material for Parents of Children With High Weight Are Viewed as Responsible for Child Weight and Thus Stigmatized

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976221124951 for Parents of Children With High Weight Are Viewed as Responsible for Child Weight and Thus Stigmatized by Devanshi Patel, Jaimie Arona Krems, Madison E. Stout, Jennifer Byrd-Craven and Misty A. W. Hawkins in Psychological Science

Footnotes

Transparency

Action Editor: Martie Haselton

Editor: Patricia J. Bauer

Author Contribution(s)

Devanshi Patel: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Resources; Visualization; Writing – original draft; Writing – review & editing.

Jaimie Arona Krems: Conceptualization; Data curation; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Writing – original draft; Writing – review & editing.

Madison E. Stout: Data curation; Formal analysis; Validation; Visualization; Writing – review & editing.

Jennifer Byrd-Craven: Conceptualization; Methodology; Writing – review & editing.

Misty A. W. Hawkins: Conceptualization; Methodology; Writing – review & editing.

ORCID iD

Jaimie Arona Krems

Supplemental Material

Additional supporting information can be found at

Notes

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