Estigma do peso experienciado por docentes universitários brasileiros na fase inicial da COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically transformed global life and required the adaptation of educational processes to emergency remote teaching, a transition that imposed additional challenges on teachers, who were already facing difficulties related to mental and physical health. The context influenced eating habits by associating them with body standards and concerns about weight, as obesity has been identified as a risk factor for severe forms of COVID-19. This has consequently increased weight stigma, characterized by discrimination and prejudice against overweight individuals. Although stigma has been studied in various contexts, there is a lack of research focused on weight stigma, especially in the educational field and among university professors, which highlights the need for more in-depth studies in this area. Therefore, the objective was to assess the prevalence of weight stigma experienced by Brazilian university professors in the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic, identify the contexts in which it was experienced, and estimate and characterize factors associated with weight stigma. This is a cross-sectional study with data collected online in 2020. The dependent variable of experienced weight stigma was determined from individuals who had already been discriminated against or harassed due to excess weight in some context of experience during the pandemic. The independent variables were grouped into three blocks: socioeconomic and demographic; general health and lifestyle characteristics; and mental health and eating habits. Poisson regression with robust variances and hierarchical entry of variables was used. Of the 1,858 university professors included in this study, 65.1% were female, with a mean age of 46.3 years (standard deviation: 10.2 years), mostly white, with a partner and children, doctoral degree and income above 10,000 reais, mostly linked to public higher education institutions. The prevalence of weight stigma experience during the pandemic was 16.9% (95% CI: 15.14-18.55), predominantly occurring within the family (64.86%; 95% CI: 59.38-69.96). Weight stigma was inversely associated with age (linear p-trend: <0.0001), brown race/color (PR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.02-1.56), poor self-rated health (PR: 1.95; 95% CI: 1.42-2.69), physical inactivity (PR: 1.33; 95% CI: 0.02-0.93), body mass index in overweight (PR: 2.12; 95% CI: 1.60-2.82) and obesity (PR: 3.16; 95% CI: 2.41-4.15), overeating (PR: 2.21; 95% CI: 1.72-2.84), reduced food consumption (PR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.20-1.92), diagnosis of eating disorders (PR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.16-1.89) and emotional distress (PR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.03-1.68). The stigma associated with weight is notorious in the family context, which often becomes a space of criticism and pressure, and discrimination is more pronounced in younger people, reflecting sociocultural patterns. Teachers, because they already experience numerous oppressions arising from their work, need to pay greater attention to their experiences, since experiencing stigma related to weight and the body can result in compromising the quality of life and physical and emotional health of these professionals, since the stigma of weight, although socially normalized, is intolerable, violates human rights and persistently affects the physical and mental health of affected individuals.