The measurement of attitudes toward and beliefs about obese persons

The purpose of this research was to develop reliable measures of attitudes toward and beliefs about obese persons, and to examine their relationship. The Attitudes Toward Obese Persons Scale (ATOP) consists of 20 Likert-type items and has an alpha reliability range of .80 to .84. The Beliefs About Obese Persons Scale (BAOP) consists of eight items and has an alpha reliability range of .65 to .82. Both scales and a questionnaire were administered to 514 members of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), 52 graduate students, and 72 undergraduate students. The multiple correlations were .41 for the NAAFA sample, .53 for the graduate students, and .41 for the undergraduate students, all significant at the .001 level. The attitude score (ATOP) was most consistently and strongly correlated with the belief score (BAOP). Factor analysis yielded a simple factor structure with three highly interpretable factors: Different Personality, Social Difficulties, and Self-Esteem, accounting for 23%, 11%, and 8% of the variance respectively.