Weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors in Pakistani overweight adolescents: the mediating role of body esteem
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors in Pakistani overweight adolescents: the mediating role of body esteem Mubeena Munir1 · Saima Dawood1 Received: 24 March 2018 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Purpose Weight stigma has been described as social devaluation of people on the basis of their weight and it is associated with negative consequences. The present study was designed to investigate weight stigma and its relationship with disordered eating behaviors in overweight adolescents. One of the main objectives of this study is to investigate the mediating role of body esteem between weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors in overweight adolescent girls. Methods Through cross-sectional research design and purposive sampling technique, a sample of 200 overweight adolescent girls was recruited from Lahore, Pakistan. Participants were asked to fill self-report measures related to weight stigma, body esteem, and disordered eating behaviors. Results SPSS and AMOS were used to analyze the data. Pearson product moment correlation showed that experiences of weight stigma were negatively related to body esteem and positively related to disordered eating behaviors in overweight adolescent girls. Furthermore, structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that body esteem was significantly mediating the relationship between weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors in adolescent girls. Conclusion It is concluded that weight stigma and body esteem play a significant role in the development and maintenance of disordered eating behaviors in overweight adolescents. Awareness/educational programs could be designed to empower adolescent girls in combating negative consequences of weight stigma. Furthermore, specific programs could be designed at college or university level to boost one’s body esteem and reduce disordered eating behaviors. Level of evidence Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study. Keywords Weight stigma · Body esteem · Disordered eating behaviors · Overweight adolescents
Introduction Weight stigma has been described as social devaluation and denigration of an individual on the basis of his/her weight that often results in prejudice, negative stereotyping and discrimination towards that individual [1]. Weight stigma can occur in the form of verbal teasing (e.g., name calling, laughing or derogatory remarks) or physical victimization (e.g., hitting, pulling, kicking or pushing) [2]. Sadly, strong bias against overweight/obese has increased in both Western and Asian cultures [3, 4] as a study reported that weight stigma has been increased by 66% over the past decade [5] particularly in overweight adolescents [6]. Another study * Mubeena Munir [email protected] 1
Centre for Clinical Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
reported that approximately 23% of early adolescent girls and 29% of late adolescent girls reported frequent experiences of weight stigmatization [7]. Amongst the sources of weight stigma, f
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