Assessment of eating attitudes and body satisfaction among high school adolescents in Turkey

Abstract

Background/aims:  This research aimed to investigate the relationship between eating attitudes and body satisfaction among adolescents attending high school in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. Methods: The participants were 718 males and 761 females, in total 1479 adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years. The Eating Attitude Test-26 (EAT-26) and Body Cathexis Scale (BCS) were used to assess eating attitudes and body satisfaction respectively. Data from the study were evaluated statistically by chi-square test. Results: Our results showed that 2.93 % of males and 40.07 of females faced a high risk of having an eating disorder. Our findings confirm that females are more at risk of eating disorders. The BCS of males (90.8 ± 20.8) was found significantly higher than females (81.3 ± 16.8) ( p<0.001), which indicates that females are less content than about their appearance. We also found that 6.3 % of males and 18.2 % of females thought that they were overweight, and 22.9% of females and 4.3 % of males perceived themselves as obese. While 58.6 % of males perceived their body image as correct, 65.8 % of females did not (p<0.05). Conclusion: Together these results confirm that female adolescents tend to be less satisfied with their weight and more likely to display disordered eating attitudes.   Keywords: Adolescents, Eating Attitude Test-26, Body Cathexis Scale, Body Satisfaction