The features of personal psychological traits in people with overweight

Remesnyk, N. Yu. (2022). The features of personal psychological traits in people with overweight. Український психологічний журнал, 2(18), 124-135. https://doi.org/10.17721/upj.2022.2(18).7

The article studied the personal psychological traits of overweight people. Modern society perceives body corpulence as something negative and something to be ashamed of. However, obesity and related eating disorders have continued to grow steadily over the past few decades. The purpose of the article is to compare the personality traits of people with normal weight and overweight people in order to identify the psychological characteristics of people with excess weight. The conducted empirical research and analysis showed: 1) overweight respondents mostly haв a negative image of their own body; 2) overweight respondents had a worse control over their activities, were not always able to use the current situation to their own advantage, to achieve goals that might be blurred and not clear for such respondents. Also, overweight respondents had low self-acceptance. Therefore, in general, the psychological well-being of overweight people was reduced. We did not find differences on the scale of autonomy, and we cannot claim that overweight people excessively relied on other people's opinions, wishes or views; 3) overweight people tended to have depressive states. We believe that this happens, first of all, due to the pressure of society, due to the ideal of a slender, even sometimes too thin person existing in society; 4) overweight respondents were prone to pessimism, tended to distance themselves from their partner in romantic relationships. Overweight respondents were more likely to have a cold relationship with their parents. They also saw the relationship between their parents as strained, close to conflict. Based on the obtained data, we see a promising study aimed at improving the identified characteristics, which can help such people reduce excess weight.