ORIGINAL ARTICLE Implicit and explicit anti-fat bias among Asian females Weiting Jiang 1 • Janice Tan 1 • Daniel B. Fassnacht 1,2 Received: 19 January 2016 / Accepted: 30 April 2016 Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 Abstract Obesity is not only associated with an increased risk of numerous health problems, but also with high rates of stigmatization and weight-related bias. Anti-fat attitudes have been shown to be prevalent in Western samples; however, there is a lack of studies investigating both implicit and explicit anti-fat bias in Asian populations. There is also limited research investigating the relationship between anti-fat attitudes and weight-related behavioral intentions. Thus, this study aimed to examine anti-fat bias and its effect on behavioral intentions using three types of measures—implicit, explicit, and a revised behavioral intention measure—in a sample of 104 Asian females in Singapore. Significant differences were found between implicit and explicit bias: on average, participants exhib- ited strong implicit but no explicit anti-fat bias (p \ 0.001). Furthermore, only implicit anti-fat bias was found to be a significant predictor of behavioral intentions (p \ 0.05), after accounting for body mass index, and sociodemo- graphic variables. In conclusion, the present study revealed that implicit anti-fat bias is present among Asian females and is a valid predictor of weight-related behavioral intentions. However, anti-fat bias is often not expressed explicitly, possibly influenced by collectivistic beliefs. More studies are needed to better understand similarities and differences between Asian and Western populations regarding attitudes toward overweight and obese individuals. Keywords Obesity Á Anti-fat bias Á Implicit vs. explicit attitudes Á Asia Á Females Introduction Obesity is associated with serious health consequences [50]. Beyond physical health problems, obesity is also often accompanied by social consequences of pervasive stigmatization, termed anti-fat bias [28]. Anti-fat bias refers to the negative stigmatization and generalization that overweight and obese individuals are perceived as lacking self-control and self-responsibility due to their excessive body weight [24, 46]. For instance, overweight people tend to be rated negatively across several domains, such as being less attractive, less healthy, but also less likeable, motivated, self-disciplined, and having less willpower as compared to their average-weight and underweight coun- terparts [1]. Recent findings show that weight-related stigmatization extends to perceived capabilities of over- weight individuals, such as their lack of personal respon- sibility [27] or intelligence [41]. Overweight and obese individuals even hold similarly strong anti-fat attitudes toward their own in-group members (i.e., overweight and obese individuals) internalizing this bias [33, 46], thus ensuing low self-esteem and confidence levels. A recent study by Durso et al. [8] examined levels of internalized anti-fat bias in a sample of treatment-seeking overweight adults and found that the bias may be associated with one’s perceived sense of consequences of being overweight rather than one’s degree of overweight. The study reported that anti-fat bias internalization was associated with poorer mental and physical health-related quality of life and pre- dictive of one’s body image concern, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. There is also well-established & Daniel B. Fassnacht daniel.fassnacht@anu.edu.au 1 Department of Psychology, James Cook University, Singapore, Singapore 2 Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia 123 Eat Weight Disord DOI 10.1007/s40519-016-0290-8