Living while fat: Development and validation of the Fat Microaggressions Scale

Fat microaggressions are micro-level social practices in the form of commonplace everyday indignities that insult fat people and have been documented anecdotally and qualitatively. However, no psychometrically validated scale exists for measuring fat microaggressions, despite decades of microaggression research demonstrating their negative health associations. This research describes the development and construct validation of the Fat Microaggressions Scale (FMS) across four studies. Study 1 focused on item development, through a systematic review, qualitative analysis of Tweets using #fatmicroaggressions, and a Delphi review. Study 2 (N = 343) determined that a four-factor structure was appropriate in an online community sample of fat adults. Study 3 (N = 410) confirmed the factor structure in a new online sample of fat adults and provided initial evidence of construct validity. Study 4 (N = 197) found evidence of test-retest reliability and demonstrated additional construct validity. Our findings offer a newly validated quantitative measure of fat microaggressions and an initial framework for naming and categorizing these experiences, which may be used to advance the study of fat microaggressions.