Racial Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Obesity in Collegiate African American Women
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Racial Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Obesity in Collegiate African American Women Laura Manns-James 1
&
Mary K. Anthony 2
&
Angela Neal-Barnett 3
Received: 7 May 2020 / Revised: 14 September 2020 / Accepted: 21 September 2020 # W. Montague Cobb-NMA Health Institute 2020
Abstract Objective To investigate relationships among racial discrimination, explicit racial identity, and obesity in young collegiate African American (AA) women aged 18–25. Design Researchers recruited 136 women who self-identified as AA from a large Midwestern university. Racial discrimination (RD) was measured using lifetime overt experiences of discrimination, recent microaggressions, and vicarious RD directed towards close others. Explicit racial identity included dimensions of private regard, public regard, and centrality. Generalized obesity (elevated body mass index) and abdominal obesity (increased fat distribution in the midsection) were measured biometrically using kg/m2 and waist circumference, respectively. Hierarchical multiple regression was employed to explore main and interaction effects. Results After controlling for adverse life events and income, overt RD, recent microaggressions, and private regard directly accounted for variance in both BMI and waist circumference. Public regard and centrality moderated relationships between RD variables and waist circumference. Conclusions RD and racial identity accounted for up to 13% of variance in BMI and waist circumference in main effects models among young collegiate AA women. While obesity is a multifactorial phenomenon, racial discrimination and racial identity may affect observed racial disparities in obesity rates among young women. Keywords Racial identity . Racial discrimination . Microaggressions . Obesity . African American women . Nursing research
Introduction Racial disparities in obesity among women are well-documented, and African American women (AA) of childbearing age frequently have obesity compared to other racial and ethnic groups [1]. Specifically, 56.9% of non-Hispanic Black women have obesity, compared to 43.7% of Hispanic women, 39.8% of non-Hispanic White women, and 17.2% of nonHispanic Asian women [2]. Obesity contributes to other health disparities experienced by AA women, including poor perinatal outcomes for mothers and babies [3, 4]. Because women often become pregnant and give birth during young
* Laura Manns-James [email protected] 1
Department of Midwifery and Women’s Health, Frontier Nursing University, Versailles, KY, USA
2
College of Nursing, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
3
Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA
adulthood, and preconceptional obesity increases risks for perinatal problems [5], exploring influences on body size in younger AA women is important. A growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to racial discrimination (RD) may influence body size and the development of obesity [6–9]. RD is frequently encountered over the lifespan for AA women and girls [10, 11] a
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