The Relationship between Overweight/Obesity and Self-esteem in Adolescents: The Moderating Effects of Socio-demographic Characteristics, Family Support, Academic Achievement and Peer Interaction

Abstract

Objectives: The aims of this cross-sectional study were to examine the relationship between adolescent overweight/obesity and self-esteem, and the moderating effects of socio-demographic characteristics, family support, academic achievement, and peer interaction on its relationship. Methods: We recruited 9,885 adolescent students in southern Taiwan into this study to complete the questionnaires. We examined the relationship between overweight/obesity and self-esteem as well as the moderating effects of socio-demographic characteristics, family support, academic achievement, and peer interaction with logistic regression analyses. Results: The results of this study found that after adjusting for other important variables, overweight or obese adolescents were more likely to have low self-esteem (p＜0.05). Meanwhile, age (p＜0.05) and family support (p＜0.05) showed significant moderating effects on the relationship between low self-esteem and overweight/obesity. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that low self-esteem was an important clinical issue in overweight or obese adolescents, and that the relationship between overweight/obesity and self-esteem differed significantly for the adolescents with various groups of age and family support. We suggest that further studies are needed to confirm the findings of this study.