Description
Obesity is a national epidemic that contributes to preventable causes of death in the U.S. College students are particularly susceptible to overweight and obesity, and women are at increased risk of weight gain during the transition from high school. Dieting is a widespread practice among college women, but is ineffective and harmful in the long term. Intuitive eating offers a non-dieting alternative to weight management, teaching participants to eat only in response to hunger and satiety cues. Key components of intuitive eating include unconditional permission to eat, eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, reliance on hunger and satiety cues, and body-food choice congruence. It has been associated with improved physical and psychological health and has been studied in association with various dimensions of body image. Body Image Discrepancy (BID) represents whether a respondent believes her current body is larger or smaller than ideal. The association between BID and intuitive eating has not been studied. Given the prevalence of overweight and obesity in U.S. women and the role BID and intuitive eating might play in weight management, it is important to understand their relationship. The current study examined the relationship between BID and intuitive eating, controlling for BMI as a potential confounder. Analyses also examined the relationship between BID and each independent intuitive eating component. In addition, exploratory analyses examined the relationship between healthy-ideal discrepancy (HID), a different body image dimension, and intuitive eating. A sample of 44 SDSU freshmen completed baseline measurements as part of the Be In Tune with your Eating intervention. Results indicated greater BID was negatively associated with intuitive eating. Participants who believed that their current bodies were larger than ideal were less likely to honor hunger and satiety cues than participants who expressed little or no BID. HID and intuitive eating were not associated. Thus, the difference between current and ideal sizes appears to be more influential than the difference between healthy and ideal sizes. Women with high BID are less likely to eat intuitively, and should be targeted in future weight management interventions in order to avoid the negative health outcomes associated with dieting.
