Effects of self-compassion on the psychobiological responses to weight stigma: A feasibility and proof-of-concept study

Karen K. Leung Miss, Western University

Abstract

Higher-weight individuals face pervasive weight-related stigma and discrimination in their daily lives. There is conceptual and empirical evidence to suggest that weight stigma contributes to worse physical and psychological health outcomes, mediated by the deleterious psychobiological responses to psychosocial stress. Activating self-soothing emotional states (such as self-compassion) may protect against this psychobiological cascade, conferring resilience to negative social evaluation (such as weight stigma). This proof-of-concept pilot study examined the feasibility and acceptability of an acute experimental protocol testing psychobiological responses to a weight-based social evaluative induction and self-compassion intervention. A secondary objective was to examine the efficacy of the acute self-compassion intervention to dampen the psychobiological stress response. Self-identifying cis-gender women (N = 37, M_age = 21.93) who also identified as “average weight”, or “higher weight” were randomized into an intervention or control condition and completed measures of psychobiological stress. Overall, the study demonstrated feasibility and acceptability evidence, however, it was not feasible to recruit the target sample size. Findings revealed that weight stigma induction elicited an increase in self-conscious emotions. While the intervention successfully induced self-compassion among participants in the intervention group, the efficacy of self-compassion to attenuate the psychobiological stress response was limited. The results from this study provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility and acceptability of a weight stigma induction and self-compassion intervention protocol but demonstrate limited efficacy, likely due to sample size restraints. Due to the important impact of weight stigma on health, future research is needed to elucidate the conditions in which weight-based social evaluation activates the psychobiological systems.