The Impact of Body Size on Utilizing Mental Health Services

Abstract

According to Flegal et al. (2016), approximately 32.5% of American adults are classified as "overweight" and 37.7% are considered "obese" in the BMI system (Flegal et al., 2016). At the same time, bias and discrimination toward obese individuals are widely reported and documented (Agell & Rothblum, 1991; O'Brien et al., 2013; Puhl & King, 2013). Given that bias and discrimination impact mental health outcomes (i.e., Simone & Lockhart, 2016), it is important to understand how body size, internalized weight bias, and responsibility for weight ideology may impact a person's likelihood of seeking out necessary mental healthcare services. The present study looked at predictive factors of mental healthcare utilization based on BMI, internalized weight bias, and responsibility for weight ideology. Results indicated that as BMI increased, mental healthcare utilization decreased; as internalized stigma increased, mental healthcare utilization decreased; and as genetic/environmental responsibility for weight ideology increased, mental healthcare utilization increased. The combination of BMI, internalized weight stigma, and responsibility for weight ideology provided the best-fit model for predicting past-year mental healthcare utilization rates. The results suggest that a lower BMI, lower internalized weight stigma, and believing that weight is largely attributable to genetics/environment best predicts past-year mental healthcare utilization rates.