Feminism and Its Associations with Weight Stigma, Body Image, and Disordered Eating: A Risk or Protective Factor?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This was a pleasure to read. It's a well constructed and argued paper. The significance of the findings are not over-stated. The authors identify the strengths and weaknesses of the work, along with directions for future study. I have no important issues for the authors to address.

Many thanks.

Author Response

Comment 1: This was a pleasure to read. It's a well constructed and argued paper. The significance of the findings are not over-stated. The authors identify the strengths and weaknesses of the work, along with directions for future study. I have no important issues for the authors to address. Many thanks.

Response 1: Thank you for your feedback and the kind words about our paper.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a compelling and well-articulated study that explores the complex relationship between feminist beliefs, weight stigma, and body image concerns in a racially diverse sample of college women. The manuscript is timely and provides new insights into an underexplored area.

Strengths:
Use of validated instruments across psychological and sociocultural dimensions.
Thorough exploration of both externalized and internalized weight bias.
Valuable discussion of paradoxical findings that challenges existing assumptions.

Suggestions:
Clarify the causal direction limits more clearly in both abstract and discussion. A stronger emphasis on the cross-sectional design would help reduce the risk of misinterpretation.
Discuss more deeply why feminist identity may be linked to increased self-directed distress (e.g., internalized stigma, eating risk). Is it possible that feminist self-awareness exacerbates sensitivity to sociocultural contradictions?
Consider reflecting on how different waves or forms of feminism might influence body-related outcomes differently—this would enrich the interpretation.
Suggest updating the psychometric tools in future studies to align with current feminist paradigms.

Overall, this is an original and valuable contribution to both the obesity stigma and feminist psychology literature.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 Comments –

Comment 1: This is a compelling and well-articulated study that explores the complex relationship between feminist beliefs, weight stigma, and body image concerns in a racially diverse sample of college women. The manuscript is timely and provides new insights into an underexplored area.

Response 1: Thank you for your thoughtful feedback on our paper. We appreciate the opportunity to revise it.

 

Strengths:

Comment 2: Use of validated instruments across psychological and sociocultural dimensions. Thorough exploration of both externalized and internalized weight bias. Valuable discussion of paradoxical findings that challenges existing assumptions.

Response 2: Thank you for the kind words about our paper, we appreciate it.

 

Suggestions:

Comment 3: Clarify the causal direction limits more clearly in both abstract and discussion. A stronger emphasis on the cross-sectional design would help reduce the risk of misinterpretation.

Response 3: Thank you for this suggestion. We have changed final sentence of the abstract (lines 33-36) to now read, “Longitudinal research is needed to confirm the direction of these relationships and to understand which components of feminist theory and feminist values can be most helpful in reducing weight bias on an individual level, while still addressing structural change.” We also edited the discussion section (lines 278-283). It now reads, “It is worth noting that the present study is cross-sectional, thus causal conclusions cannot be drawn. As the present results are not longitudinal, it may be that individuals with greater distress from body dissatisfaction, eating concerns, or weight bias internalization are more likely to engage in feminist beliefs to seek relief from societal pressures and internal distress. These variables need to be studied across time to clarify the onset and direction of these relationships.”

 

Comment 4: Discuss more deeply why feminist identity may be linked to increased self-directed distress (e.g., internalized stigma, eating risk). Is it possible that feminist self-awareness exacerbates sensitivity to sociocultural contradictions?

Response 4: Thank you for raising this point. We added to our section discussion how feminist attitudes might be more reflective of an awareness (lines 268-278). It now reads, “It is possible that individuals who identify as feminists might have more critical consciousness that leads them to be more aware of the marginalization of larger bodies and thus strive to maintain thinness. For example, they may be more acutely aware of the ways in which women are punished for failing to conform to certain appearance ideals, as evidenced by the lower likelihood of women with higher body weights to be hired and promoted [26,40]. Additionally, feminists may be more aware of the financial im-pacts of living in a larger body, including the costs incurred by individuals facing weight-based discrimination [41]and the wage penalties for women with higher weights in the workplace [42-43]. Thus, it is possible that increased feminist attitudes or identity is reflective of a greater self-awareness, therefore exacerbating sensitivity to sociocultural contradictions.”

 

Comment 5: Consider reflecting on how different waves or forms of feminism might influence body-related outcomes differently—this would enrich the interpretation.

Response 5: Thank you for this suggestion. We added a paragraph to the discussion which addresses the waves of feminism and how our results fit in (lines 285-297). It reads, “It is possible that the findings of the present study reflect the current feminist paradigms. Scholars have argued that feminism is currently in its fourth wave, with the start marked by the #MeToo movement in 2017 [44]. The first and second waves of feminism, while focused on expanding rights for women, were frequently critiqued as being exclusionary, particularly to Black women and other people of color [45]. It was during the third wave of feminism that the concept of intersectionality was first introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989 [46]. Scholars and feminist activists have since pushed for feminism to be more inclusive of race and gender, highlighting the ways in which oppression based on minoritized identities can compound and overlap. Despite the progress in intersectionality and inclusion, it is possible that our results reflect the current state of feminism; feminists may be more accepting of individuals across diverse body sizes. However, they themselves are not yet immune to the pressures of societal norms or the shifting appearance-based pressures from new sources like social media.”

 

Comment 6: Suggest updating the psychometric tools in future studies to align with current feminist paradigms.

Response 6: We appreciate this suggestion. We added to the future directions section on page 7 (lines 310-316). It now reads, “Future research should consider updating measures of feminist attitudes and behaviors to reflect modern perceptions of feminist paradigms. Future research should then consider repeating this study with new measures to assess whether the results have changed in response. Future research would also likely benefit from a measure specifically designed to capture feminist attitudes related to patriarchal norms of beauty and thinness. Additionally, it would be helpful for future research to have a standardized set of measures used to improve the ability to compare outcomes across studies.”

 

Comment 7: Overall, this is an original and valuable contribution to both the obesity stigma and feminist psychology literature.

Response 7: Thank you for your time and feedback.