Researchers tracked the self-weighing behaviours of more than 1,900 young adults
Researchers tracked the self-weighing behaviours of more than 1,900 young adults
Washington
: Frequent self-weighing may increase weight concerns and depressive symptoms in young women while decreasing their self-esteem, a new study has found.
Self-weighing can be a useful tool to help adults control their weight, but for adolescents and young adults this behaviour may have negative psychological outcomes.
Researchers tracked the self-weighing behaviours of more than 1,900 young adults as part of Project EAT (Eating and Activity in Teens and Young Adults) and found increases in self-weighing to be significantly related to increases in weight concern and depression and decreases in body satisfaction and self-esteem among females.
-"Females who strongly agreed they self-weighed reported engaging in extremely dangerous weight-control behaviours at a rate of 80 per cent,-" said lead author Carly R Pacanowski, from the University of Minnesota in US.
-"Adolescent obesity is a public health concern, but body dissatisfaction and weight concerns are predictors of eating disorders,-" said Ms Pacanowski.
-"This makes it critical that obesity-prevention programmes avoid exacerbating these predictors by understanding how behaviours such as self-weighing affect teens,-" said Ms Pacanowski.
Project EAT is a longitudinal cohort study that tracked 1,902 young adults (43 per cent male, 57 per cent female) over 10 years.
Researchers used participants' descriptions of the prevalence of their self-weighing from the study to examine associations between self-weighing and changes in weight status, psychological variables, and behavioural outcomes.
Self-weighing, ideal weight, weight concern, body satisfaction, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms were ranked by participants using a Likert scale; adolescents also reported their engagement in unhealthy and extreme unhealthy behaviours. Researchers calculated body-mass index (BMI) for the participants as well.
The researchers' primary interest in this study was to understand how changes in self-weighing were related to changes in the other variables studied.
Results indicated that females who reported increases in self-weighing over the 10-year period were expected to have increases in weight concern and depressive symptoms and decreases in body satisfaction and self-esteem.
As such, self-weighing may not be an innocuous behaviour and care should be taken when young adults report self-weighing, researchers said.
-"Clinicians should ask adolescent patients about self-weighing at office visits to determine any benefits or negative outcomes,-" Ms Pacanowski said.
-"Noting changes in this behaviour over time can be helpful for investigating other, more concerning changes in well-being among young adults,-" Ms Pacanowski added.
