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 5 J4 members of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), 52 graduate students, and 72 undergraduate students. The multiple correlations were .47 for the NAAFA sample, .53 for the graduate students, and .4 I for the undergraduate students, all significant at the .OO J 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%, J I %, and 8 % of the variance respectively.
THE MEASUREMENT OF ATTITUDES TOWARD OBESE PERSONS
Publications about perceptions of overweight persons tend to emphasize the negative; obesity is a stigma, obese persons are often rejected, and many obese persons internalize the negative attitudes of society and consequently have poor self-images. In addition to general discussions, there have been studies of the attitudes of both obese and nonobese persons toward obese individuals