Implicit Attitudes Towards Weight, One’s Own Body and its Relation to Food in Women with Overweight and Obesity

Abstract

Background Theoretical models emphasize the importance of implicit self-related weight attitudes for the maintenance of body dissatisfaction. Even though body dissatisfaction is increased in obesity, only general implicit weight-related attitudes have been investigated so far. Therefore, the present study assessed self-related and general implicit weight attitudes and their relation to food. Methods Women with overweight and obesity (OW; n = 71) and women with normal weight (NW; n = 44) completed three implicit tasks to (1) assess attitudes towards persons with normal weight and overweight in general, (2) attitudes towards one’s own body, and (3) the association between one’s own body and food. Results While both groups showed an implicit preference towards persons with normal weight relative to persons with overweight, only women with OW showed a significantly stronger negative implicit attitude towards their own body and a stronger association between food and one’s own body. Additionally, self-related and not general implicit weight attitudes correlated significantly with body dissatisfaction and eating pathology. Conclusions The results highlight the importance of self-related implicit attitudes and their relation to body dissatisfaction and eating pathology in women with overweight and obesity. Targeting these self-related implicit weight attitudes might help to improve obesity treatments.

Attentional processing of body images in women with overweight and obesity

“…In this study, this deficit-oriented viewing pattern has been interpreted as reflecting the negative cultural views on obesity. Importantly, these negative attitudes towards overweight and obesity are also shared by the overweight community itself [ 29 ], and are associated with poor mental health and higher body dissatisfaction [ 30 ]. Hence, the deficit-oriented viewing pattern found in the present study might contribute to the maintenance of these dysfunctional internalized attitudes [ 5 ].…”