Personality features of obese women in relation to binge eating and night eating

Riccardo Dalle Grave,Simona Calugi,Giulio Marchesini,Paolo Beck-Peccoz,Ottavio Bosello,Angelo Compare,Massimo Cuzzolaro,Enzo Grossi,Edoardo Mannucci,Enrico Molinari,Franco Tomasi,Nazario Melchionda

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2012.09.001

Abstract

Personality traits can affect eating behaviors, the development of obesity, and obesity treatment failure. We investigated the personality characteristics and their relation with disordered eating in 586 obese women consecutively seeking treatment at eight Italian medical centers (age, 47.7±9.8 years) and 185 age-matched, normal weight women without symptoms of eating disorders (Eating Attitude Test<20). The assessment included anthropometry, the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), the Binge Eating Scale (BES) and the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ). Logistic regression analyses were carried out in different models with BES score≥27 and NEQ≥30 as dependent variables and TCI scores as independent factors. Personality traits of obese individuals included significantly lower self-directedness and cooperativeness on TCI. BES and NEQ scores were higher in obese women, and values above the defined cut-offs were present in 77 and 18 cases (14 with high BES), respectively. After controlling for age and BMI, high BES values were associated with high novelty seeking and harm avoidance and low self-directedness, the last two scales being also associated with high NEQ. We conclude that personality traits differ between obese patients seeking treatment and controls, and the presence of disordered eating is associated with specific personality characteristics.

Highlights

Disordered eating has been variably associated with specific personality traits (Fassino et al, 2002b; van den Bree et al, 2006), but studies carried out by means of the Karolinska Scales of Personality
At baseline the subjects with obesity were characterized by higher scores on the Binge Eating Scale (BES) and the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), and significantly lower selfdirectedness and cooperativeness scores on the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), when compared with the control group (Table 1)
Logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age and BMI, showed that BES Z27 in the obese population was positively associated with higher NEQ (odds ratio (OR), 1.13; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09–1.17), with deciles of novelty seeking (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.09–1.31) and harm avoidance (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.23–1.68), and was negatively associated with deciles of self-directedness (OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.58–0.75)

Summary

Introduction

Disordered eating has been variably associated with specific personality traits (Fassino et al, 2002b; van den Bree et al, 2006), but studies carried out by means of the Karolinska Scales of Personality Higher scores in monotony avoidance were systematically associated with incapacity to maintain weight loss, but the scale does not help predict outcome in obesity treatment (Poston et al, 1999). These inventories were designed and validated to assess overt pathological personality traits, whereas the inter-individual variation of normal traits may be left undiagnosed because of poor specificity (Sullivan et al, 2007). Whichever the cause and the effect, a precise assessment of personality traits might help identify strategies to improve obesity treatment

Methods

Results

Conclusion