Eating pattern and self-esteem in overweight women.

Recent studies have shown that the relationship between poor self-esteem and disturbed eating patterns may be more fully understood when the self-esteem concept is divided into an affective domain ('self-liking') and a cognitive domain ('self-competence'). In the present study 38 overweight women between the ages of 21 and 68 participated in an 8-week weight reduction program whereby the Self-Liking and Competence Scale [SLCS] and the Eating Disorder Scale [EDS-5] were used in order to measure self-esteem and eating patterns, respectively. An improvement in the eating patterns corresponded to an improvement in self-liking, but not in self-competence. Statistically significant weight reduction did occur, but on the average, the subjects still remained overweight. As in other studies on normal weight individuals in analogous test situations completing the same instruments, the results point only to a specific relationship between disturbed eating patterns and self-liking. The results suggest that an increased benefit from a weight reduction program could be expected if strategies for improving eating patterns and self-liking are included. This hypothesis warrants further controlled treatment studies.