- USDA Gets Tougher on Salmonella in Raw Breaded Chicken Products
- Fragments of Bird Flu Virus Found in 1 in 5 Milk Samples
- Clients Got HIV Through ‘Vampire Facial’ Microneedling Treatments
- Take the Stairs & Step Up to Longer Life
- ‘Drug Take Back Day’ is Saturday: Check for Leftover Opioids in Your Home
- Loneliness Can Shorten Lives of Cancer Survivors
- A Stolen Dog Feels Like Losing a Child, Study Finds
- Healthier Hearts in Middle Age Help Black Women’s Brains Stay Strong
- Better Scans Spot Hidden Inflammation in MS Patients
- Which Patients and Surgeries Are ‘High Risk’ for Seniors?
Frequent Self-Weighing by Young Women Linked to Depression
Young women who weigh themselves frequently may be at risk for depression, a new study suggests.
They were much more likely to be concerned about their weight, to have depression and to have lower levels of self-esteem and body satisfaction, the researchers said.
More than than 1,900 young adults were included in the study. Fifty-seven percent were female. The group was asked about self-weighing habits. Researchers tracked the participants’ weight and psychological well-being over a decade.
The study appears in the November/December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
“Females who strongly agreed they self-weighed reported engaging in extremely dangerous weight-control behaviors at a rate of 80 percent,” lead author Carly Pacanowski, of the University of Minnesota, said in a journal news release.
“Adolescent obesity is a public health concern, but body dissatisfaction and weight concerns are predictors of eating disorders,” she noted.
Obesity-prevention programs need to avoid making body dissatisfaction worse. One way to help is to understand how behaviors such as self-weighing can affect teens, Pacanowski said.
She also recommended that doctors ask young women about self-weighing.
“Noting changes in this behavior over time can be helpful for investigating other, more concerning changes in well-being among young adults,” she said.
Although the study found an association between increased self-weighing and problems such as depression, it wasn’t designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
More information
The U.S. Office on Women’s Health has more about body image.
Source: HealthDay
Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.