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Body image satisfaction and eating attitudes in pregnant women

Different psychological determinants play a role in the development of disordered eating attitudes, among which are depressiveness, self-esteem, body image dissatisfaction, perfectionism, and anxiety. However, previous studies have rarely been focused on eating attitudes in pregnant women in which body image changes during pregnancy. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the occurrence of disordered eating attitudes in pregnant women and to examine whether they could be predicted by perfectionism, self-esteem, and body image satisfaction. In the cross-sectional study conducted at a university hospital centre in Zagreb, 285 pregnant women participated. They anonymously filled out questionnaires measuring eating attitudes (Eating Attitudes Test, Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) and dieting (Adolescent Dieting Scale, Patton et al., 1997), perfectionism (Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale, Terry-Short et al., 1995), self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Rosenberg, 1965), body image satisfaction (modified version of Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, Winstead & Cash, 1984), depressiveness (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, Cox et al., 1987), and anxiety (subscale anxiety from Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). The results showed the low occurrence of disordered eating attitudes in pregnant women, with 1.1 % pregnant women engaged in extreme diet, 24.4 % engaged in moderate diet, while 74.8 % engaged in minimal dieting. Out of the whole sample, in 27.1 % the physician prescribed diet and 23.9 % had gestational diabetes. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that body dissatisfaction is a significant predictor of disordered eating attitudes, while perfectionism, self-esteem, depression, and anxiety were not significant predictors of the eating attitudes. In conclusion, the majority of pregnant women do not report disordered eating attitudes nor engage themselves in the extreme dieting. However, the small proportion of women do report risky eating attitudes which can be predicted by body image dissatisfaction.

pregnancy ; disordered eating attitudes ; dieting ; body image satisfaction

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