10 Weight stigma is prevalent, with levels similar to those of racism and sexism.11 Moreover, it is

increasingly prevalent, with levels of perceived discrimination having almost doubled in the past decade or so.11 Discrimination has been demonstrated in areas such as employment, education and health,1 is more common in women,12 and increases with the level of obesity.13 Both explicit (overt) and implicit (more subtle) weight stigma has been shown to predict discriminating behaviours.14 and 15 Puhl and King16 summarised the potential harmful find more effects of weight stigma to include: depression, anxiety, low self esteem, suicidal ideation, body dissatisfaction and maladaptive eating behaviours. Weight stigma has sometimes been thought to be helpful in motivating weight loss behaviours.17 This perspective has been shown to be unfounded,18 as weight stigma negatively influences motivation to exercise,19 reduces the

healthcare seeking behaviours of people who are obese,20 and is positively correlated with increased disordered eating.21 Much of the study of weight stigma has focused on health professionals, with the topic receiving Modulators considerable media and research attention JNK inhibitor over the past 10 years.1 People who are overweight state that they are treated differently by health care providers.22 A study of 2284 doctors showed both explicit and implicit weight stigma,23 and other health professions perform similarly when tested on weight stigma, including: nurses,24 exercise scientists,25 and dieticians.26 Despite the size and impact of the physiotherapy profession,27 there has been little investigation of physiotherapists’ attitudes towards weight. Sack and colleagues28 reported that physiotherapists had neutral attitudes to people who are obese, despite finding that over 50% of the physiotherapists who were studied believing that people who are obese are weak-willed, non-compliant and unattractive. These results suggest that physiotherapists

do possess negative stereotypes old of overweight people and may exhibit weight stigma. To the authors’ knowledge no study more specific to weight stigma in physiotherapists has been conducted. This research addressed this gap in the literature. The research questions were: 1. Do physiotherapists demonstrate explicit weight stigma? This cross-sectional study used an online survey formatted in Qualtrics software. A pilot study was completed by a convenience sample of 13 physiotherapists (age range 23 to 55 years; from musculoskeletal, paediatric, women’s health and neurology specialty areas) to confirm blinding, assess for errors and to gauge physiotherapists’ thoughts about undertaking the survey. Minor changes were made in response. Participants consented to completing the survey after reading an information sheet. The survey is presented in Appendix 1 (see eAddenda).