Document Type : Scientific Research
Authors
1 M.Sc. in General Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
3 Associate Professor, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran.
Abstract
Objective: Obesity and overweight impose significant health care costs, while being preventable and treatable. Prevention of obesity is the best treatment strategy. Research results show that many internal and external factors can be considered as obstacles to obesity prevention or weight loss. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the mediating role of cognitive errors in the relationship between socio-cultural pressure and fear of body image in obese women without a history of weight loss. Method: The descriptive cross-sectional research design was of the correlation type, which was carried out with 200 obese women aged 30 to 55 without a history of weight loss, using available sampling method from the cities of Tehran, Rasht and Kashan, in the second half of 2012. To measure, body mass index (BMI) was used and Subjects answered demographic questionnaires, Littleton's fear of body image (BICI), perceived cultural-social pressure (PSPS) and Ellis' cognitive errors (CDQ). Data analysis was done with SPSS and Amos software version 22. Results: The average and standard deviation of the variables according to the age group of 46 to 50 years, the most cognitive error, the most average fear of body image and cultural-social pressure has been assigned to itself. These estimates are true in working women compared to housewives and also in married women compared to single women. The findings showed a relationship between cultural-social pressure and fear of body image (p<0.05, r=0.38), cognitive errors and fear of body image (p<0.05, r=0.50) and cultural-social pressure and cognitive errors (p<0.05 , r=0.65) there is a significant relationship; One unit of change of cultural-social pressure leads to 0.36 changes in fear of body image, one unit of change in cognitive errors leads to 0.55 changes in body image, and one unit of change in cultural-social pressure leads to 0.66 changes in cognitive errors. The proposed mediation model had a relatively good fit, and the drawn model explained 63% of the variable scores of fear of body image (χ2/df=2.503, RMSEA=0.088, CFI=0.609, PCFI=0.695, IFI=0.730, GFI=0.609). Bootstrap analysis showed that cognitive errors significantly mediate the relationship between socio-cultural pressure scores and fear of body image (95% CI: 0.172 to 0.154). Conclusion: According to the findings, which showed that the mediating role of cognitive errors in the relationship between socio-cultural pressure and body image in obese women without a history of weight loss is significant, cognitive errors such as bipolar thinking and attention bias have the destructive effect of cultural-social pressure to create more fear of body image intensifies in obese women. That is, although cultural-social pressure can be the trigger for weight loss, if there are cognitive errors, instead of the cultural-social pressure being the trigger, it turns it into obstacles. Therefore, it is possible to develop educational programs for obesity therapists and general health policy makers to increase awareness of cognitive errors in order to promote a correct understanding of body image and cultural -social pressure regarding persuasion to reduce or maintain weight loss.
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