Body Image, Anxiety and Emotional Eating

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Statistical analysis:

Influence of childhood teasing on BMI, anxiety, emotional eating and body image were assessed using ANOVA’s. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated and assessed for each relevant variable.

Results:

The descriptive statistics for the 5 variables analyzed as follows, BMI (M=34.30 SD=6.32), Anxiety (M=5.56, SD= 4.50), Child tease (M=2.83, SD= 1.11), Body Image (M=2.47 SD= 0.84) and Emotional eating (M=70.21, SD=20.69).

BMI was seen to have significant relationships with both body image (r=-.288, n=119, p=0.01) and emotional eating (r= 0.279, n=118, p= 0.001). The negative correlation shown between body image and BMI indicates that, as BMI increases the body image would increase, similarly, with emotional eating, as BMI increases the amount of emotional eating experienced would increase.

The relationship between childhood teasing was also assessed and the results showed that contrary to BMI, Childhood teasing showed statistical significance with anxiety (r=0.35 p=0.00), emotional eating (r= 0.20 p=0.03) and Body Image (r= -0.24, p= 0.01). These results show that as childhood teasing increased as does anxiety and emotional eating and body image decreased.

Anxiety showed a significant negative correlation with body image (r=-.36 p=0.00) and a significant positive correlation with emotional eating (r=.42, p=0.00). Thus showing that increased levels of anxiety resulted in lower levels of body image and increased levels of emotional eating.

Similarly, Body image and emotional eating showed a significant negative correlation (r=-.34, p=0.00), which shows that as body image decreases there is an increase in emotional eating.

Discussion

The present study explored the relationship between body image, anxiety and emotional eating and how they influence BMI and are influenced by teasing in childhood. As hypothesized the relationships between anxiety and childhood teasing, emotional eating and body image were all found to be statistically significant. Statistical significance was also found between childhood teasing, body image and emotional eating. Similarly statistical significance was found between lower body image and increased emotional eating. However no significance and a relatively low correlation was found between childhood teasing, anxiety, emotional eating and their relationship with BMI.

These research supports previous findings that state that physical and psychological wellbeing are associated with higher BMI [7].

Although in many previous researches gender difference has been a main point of interest, due to the limited number of males (n=3) participants in this study it was not found to be as relevant. Therefore when analyzing our results it is applicable to assume that the majority of the findings are most common for women. In support of our hypothesis women are said to be over all less satisfied with their body image [8].

[6,9] Our study supports previous results which found that eating habits and emotional eating are linked to anxiety and an unhealthy mental state. One of the common types of emotional eating is known as Binge eating which is found to lead to obesity [6]. Obesity results in a higher BMI and thus a lower body image. Emotional eating is seen to be in attempt to overcompensate for negative emotions and feelings of self –loathing and individuals who lose control over their eating are often using food consumption as a distraction from their state of unhappiness [9,10]. Binge eating disorder has been directly linked to anxiety and many other states of emotional distress and mental illness [6]. Similarly in support of our results previous research has found that binge (emotional) eating is caused by anxious feelings [14].

Being bullied and teased has by several researchers [11, 5, 12] been found to be linked to anxiety and eating disturbances. [11] studies have shown that higher levels of anxiety in adulthood are a result of negative experiences as a child.

Our results are futher supported by [13] studies which have shown the link between anxiety disorders in adulthood and how they are linked to childhood experiences of teasing or being bullied.

Minimal studies have found the interrelationships between the variables in question however some have found the link between teasing, eating disorders and anxiety states in adolescents [15]. Although our targets were adults these findings are appropriate support for our results that show a strong correlation between teasing psychological variables and disordered eating.

Limitations of our study include that it cannot be generalized to males and no gender comparison could be made, as the male population was so small. Moreover our study as well as previous studies has failed to address the influence of positive comments or experience [2]. These could be addressed in future studies to assist research in this field.

References

1. Heatherton, Todd F., and Roy F. Baumeister. 'Binge Eating As Escape From Self-Awareness.'. Psychological Bulletin 110.1 (1991): 86-108. Web.

2. Bailey, Shannon D., and Lina A. Ricciardelli. 'Social Comparisons, Appearance Related Comments, Contingent Self-Esteem And Their Relationships With Body Dissatisfaction And Eating Disturbance Among Women'. Eating Behaviors 11.2 (2010): 107-112. Web.

3. O’Brien, Kerry S. et al. 'Upward And Downward Physical Appearance Comparisons: Development Of Scales And Examination Of Predictive Qualities'. Body Image 6.3 (2009): 201-206. Web.

4. Van den Berg, Patricia, and J. Kevin Thompson. 'Self-Schema And Social Comparison Explanations Of Body Dissatisfaction: A Laboratory Investigation'. Body Image 4.1 (2007): 29-38. Web.

5. McCabe, Randi E. et al. 'The Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders In Adults And Recalled Childhood Teasing'. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 24.2 (2010): 238-243. Web.

6. Pinaquy, Sandrine et al. 'Emotional Eating, Alexithymia, And Binge-Eating Disorder In Obese Women'. Obesity Research 11.2 (2003): 195-201. Web.

7. Hunger, Jeffrey M., and Brenda Major. 'Weight Stigma Mediates The Association Between BMI And Self-Reported Health.'. Health Psychology 34.2 (2015): 172-175. Web.

8. Strahan, Erin J. et al. 'Comparing To Perfection: How Cultural Norms For Appearance Affect Social Comparisons And Self-Image'. Body Image 3.3 (2006): 211-227. Web.

9. Geliebter, Allan,