Based on data from two questionnaires answered by 1,750 volunteers, Brazilian researchers identified a number of traits that make a person more prone to developing mental disorders related to body image and eating habits. According to the study, the problem mainly affects women, younger people, users of fitness supplements or pharmacological substances to change body shape. Also on the list are advocates of restrictive diets, people with sedentary lifestyles, people who have been diagnosed with obesity or overweight, and who have poor assessments of their own diet.
The survey was conducted and obtained by researchers from the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) and Federal de Alfenas (Unifal). financing by FAPESP. The results were Approved in the magazine environmental research and public health.
According to the authors, knowing the profile of individuals most vulnerable to this type of body disorder can support preventive and health-promoting strategies.
“There is global concern about diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity, which have a major impact on the health of the population. However, there are other conditions, such as eating disorders, that are underdiagnosed and overlooked, even though they also significantly affect people’s health. It must be taken into account that a bad relationship with food can precede a range of physical and psychological problems,” he warns. Wanderson Roberto da Silva Professor at Unifal and co-author of the article.
Nevertheless, according to the researcher, it should be borne in mind that disorders such as binge eating, anorexia and bulimia nervosa have a low prevalence in the population, but can cause serious problems. “They are strongly associated with negative emotions such as anxiety, stress and depression, which are among the top health challenges of the 21st century,” he says.
In the work, the researchers used two questionnaires to examine the association between “attention to body shape,” “social physical anxiety,” and “participants’ personal characteristics.”
In the first phase of the study, which involved 1,750 adult Brazilians, it was found that people who pay attention to their body shape are more likely to receive negative assessments of their physical condition. They also tend to be less comfortable with the physical presentation of their bodies.
The most common characteristics among those showing a high level of attention to body shape were: female gender, use of fitness supplements or pharmacological substances to alter body shape, and frequent restrictive diets.
Among those who had a higher expectation of negative physical condition ratings, the most common characteristics were: female gender, perceived as young adult, use of pharmacological substances to alter body shape, sedentary lifestyle, negative self-assessment of food quality, and being overweight or obesity.
The researchers also observed that among those individuals who were generally more comfortable with their own bodies, they were older, male, not overweight or obese, did not use pharmacological substances to alter their body shape, did not follow restrictive diets, and engaged in physical activity . In addition, the self-assessment of nutritional quality was more positive in this group.
the real body
In the second phase of the study, the researchers analyzed a subsample of 286 people who underwent a bioimpedance test performed on a type of scale capable of measuring factors such as total fat percentage, lean mass and visceral fat content.
“In this analysis, we observed that individual body composition affects perceptions of the physical shape of the body. People with the highest percentage of fat and the lowest muscle mass were the most prone to problems,” reports the researcher Agency FAPESP.
Therefore, according to the study, people who become overly preoccupied with their bodies, to the point of generating anxiety, may be exhibiting dysfunctional behaviors related to both diet and their bodies. “The big question of the work is to highlight that there are individual characteristics that indicate a greater susceptibility to dysfunctional behaviors related to negative body image and eating disorders. It is important to pay attention to these behaviors as they are at the root of future problems. With this in mind, there is an opportunity to develop more assertive disease prevention and health promotion interventions, whether in a collective or individual context,” he says.
The work was developed with an emphasis on cognitive (e.g. attention to body shape) and affective (e.g. fear generated when the body is exposed) aspects of body image. In the context of body image, the article argues, turning to the physical can create feelings of both appropriateness and inadequacy, which, depending on the intensity, can trigger psychological disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.
Silva explains that this attention can be understood as selective cognitive processing, where the individual focuses on something specific intentionally or based on internal and external stimuli. “In this process, the person is consumed by some information while neglecting others, and this happens individually and can vary according to the intensity of each stimulus,” he explains.
According to the researcher, anxiety is related to eating habits and people’s relationship with their own body image. “It influences actions. Therefore, a person with high levels of anxiety may be more prone to developing an eating disorder, especially if they have body image issues. You can use inappropriate strategies to change your body image without any supervision from a trained professional, and this endangers your health instead of improving it,” he says.
Examples of dysfunctional behaviors include adopting restrictive or fashionable diets without special supervision, engaging in excessive physical activity without supervision, and consuming dietary supplements or potentially harmful substances (e.g., anabolic steroids) without proper prescription. “As you can see, there are multiple strategies that can disrupt an individual’s life in various aspects, affecting both their physical, mental and social health,” he points out.
The item Relationship between attention to body shape, anxiety about social physique, and personal traits of Brazilians: A structural equation model read at: www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14802.
Text: Maria Fernanda Ziegler | Agency FAPESP