Weight Self-Stigma

Individuals with overweight experience chronic, pervasive stigma, which is a significant contributor to poor health outcomes. The negative consequences of stigma are further worsened among individuals with overweight who internalize and apply stigmatizing attitudes to themselves, a process called weight self-stigma. Despite its prevalence and consequences, there are notably few evidence-based interventions for weight self-stigma, with acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) being the most studied treatment to-date. Previous trials have found ACT effective for addressing weight self-stigma among adults with overweight through a one-day workshop and 10-week group. A self-guided ACT intervention has potential benefits for increasing access and reach of these services, which is supported by positive results in trials evaluating ACT delivered in a self-help book and a digital intervention format. However, these self-guided interventions included weight self-stigma as a more secondary focus and no studies have evaluated a digital ACT intervention designed specifically to address weight self-stigma. The proposed RCT will evaluate a digital ACT single session intervention relative to a waitlist control in a sample of 100 adults reporting overweight and high weight self-stigma.