Body Image and Self- Esteem as Predictors of Binge Eating Disorders among Female Undergraduates

Abstract

The study investigated the predictive nature of body image and self-esteem on binge eating disorder among female undergraduates. The participants consisted of 100 female undergraduates from Nnnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, specifically from the Faculties of Arts and management sciences, whose ages ranged from 18-26, with the mean age of 21.65 and standard deviation of 2.60. The Body Appreciation Scale-2(BAS-2), by Tylka and Wood-Barcalow (2015), Index of Self-Esteem by Hudson (1982), and Binge Eating Disorders Screener-7 by Tadeka (2019) were used to collect data for the current study. The study adopted a Predictive-Correlational design. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis were employed as the statistical tool to analyze the data. Result reveals that both independent variables have a significant predictive effect on the dependent variable. That is to say that, the first hypothesis which states that body image will not significantly predict binge eating disorder was rejected as body image perception predicted binge eating disorder among female undergraduates. Also the second hypothesis which stated that self-esteem will not significantly predict binge eating disorder was rejected, as results showed a positive correlation between self-esteem and binge eating disorders among female undergraduates. Recommendations were made among others that is a great need to create an awareness programme in Universities of the existence of Binge eating disorder, so that student would actually know and understand what the disorder is all about, and could easily identify binge eating signs and symptoms when they feel such craving to binge eat.