Abstract
Recent research has suggested that obesity is a stigmatised condition. Concerns with personal inferiority (social rank), shame and self-criticism may impact on weight management behaviours. The current study examined associations between social comparison (shame, self-criticism), negative affect and eating behaviours in women attending a community based weight management programme focused on behaviour change. 2,236 participants of the programme completed an online survey using measures of shame, self-criticism, social comparison, and weight-related affect, which were adapted to specifically address eating behaviour, weight and body shape perceptions. Correlation analyses showed that shame, self-criticism and social comparison were associated with negative affect. All of these variables were related to eating regulation and weight control (p < 0.001). Path analysis revealed that the association of shame, hated-self, and low self-reassurance on disinhibition and susceptibility to hunger was fully mediated by weight-related negative affect, even when controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms (p < 0.050 to p < 0.010). In addition, feelings of inadequacy and unfavourable social comparisons were associated with higher disinhibition and susceptibility to hunger, partially mediated through weight-related negative affect (p = 0.001). These variables were negatively associated with extent of weight loss during programme attendance prior to the survey, while self-reassurance and positive social comparisons were positively associated with the extent of weight loss prior to the survey (p < .050). Shame, self-criticism, and perceptions of inferiority may play a significant role in self-regulation of eating behaviour in overweight people trying to manage their weight.
Highlights
Projected obesity trends are well documented [1,2,3,4], escalating [5] and account for a significant proportion of health costs in Europe [6] and the US [7]
The scales, which were adapted to focus dimensions of weight and eating relevant to this population (WFES, WFFSCRS, Weight-focused social comparison scale (WFSCS)), presented higher mean values than those found with the original versions in the general population [44, 46, 47] and similar to those found in clinical samples with eating disorders [27, 28, 35]
Self-evaluation and emotion regulation may influence self-regulatory behaviours associated with weight management in some people
Summary
Projected obesity trends are well documented [1,2,3,4], escalating [5] and account for a significant proportion of health costs in Europe [6] and the US [7]. Eating may serve the function of temporarily reducing negative affect and regulating aversive emotions [22, 23] This may have consequences for the enactment of planned, reasoned behavioural pathways to manage weight. Shame and self-criticism are associated with depression [30], body image dissatisfaction [28, 31,32,33,34,35], binge eating [36,37,38,39] and obesity [40]. This study explored, through an online survey, the associations between self-evaluative processes (shame, self-criticism, social comparison), weight-related affect and depressive symptoms in people attending a community-based weight management programme. Further analysis controlled for depressive symptoms and examined the relationship between selfevaluative processes and (i) control of eating behaviour (measured by disinhibition and susceptibility to hunger) and (ii) historical weight change during programme attendance prior to the time of the survey
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