Eating behaviour and body image in overweight adolescent girls with or without hyperandrogenicity

Abstract

We addressed the question of whether a combination of obesity and hyperandrogenicity has a more severe influence on psychosocial behaviours, as reflected by eating behaviour and body image, compared to obesity alone. To study eating behaviour and body image in age-, pubertal- and BMI-matched overweight adolescent girls with and without hyperandrogenicity, and to compare the data with those from a control group of normal weight girls. Overweight adolescent girls in late puberty with (n=10) and without hyperandrogenicity (n=8) and a control group of normal weight girls (n=9) were studied. The Eating Disorder Inventory for children (EDI-C) questionnaire was used to obtain information on eating behaviours and psychological characteristics, and silhouettes were used to evaluate body image. The girls with overweight but without hyperandrogenicity showed more disturbed eating behaviour and more psychological problems than did the girls with both overweight and hyperandrogenicity as compared to the healthy controls. The overweight group also had more feelings of ineffectiveness than the hyperandrogenic group. Both the overweight and the hyperandrogenic girls estimated themselves as being significantly larger and their ideal shape as being significantly smaller than their current shape. However, all overweight girls considered their current shape to be significantly smaller than it was objectively. The girl with overweight alone seemed to have more disturbed eating behaviour and more psychological problems than girls with combined overweight and hyperandrogenicity. This could indicate that different therapeutic interventions might be needed in attempts to reduce weight in the two groups.