Psychological Impact of Fear of Fatness Moderated by Personality in a Sample of University Students

Background/Objective: Health and socio-cultural concerns have led to a situation in which the slim body mentality is now a global phenomenon, raising the potentials for fear of fatness which, in turn, can significantly compromise psychological well-being. Research also indicated that other factors, apart from actual body mass index play important roles in peoples’ fear of fatness. The observed dearth of empirical research on these important issues necessitated the present study. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between fear of fatness and psychological well-being and the extent to which personality variables (core self-evaluations) moderated the association.
Method: The study was a cross-sectional survey. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 790 undergraduate students of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria. Participants were personally interviewed, using standardized, psychometrically-robust and widely-used measures of fear of fatness, core self-evaluations, and psychological well-being. Participants were personally interviewed by the researchers and trained assistants.
Results: Fear of fatness was very high among the respondents in the present study. Fear of fatness {F (1,786) = 14.62; p. <.01} and core self-evaluations {F (1,786) = 13.09; p. <.01} independently influenced psychological well-being. The joint effect was also significant {F (1,786) = 10.74; p. <.01}. Psychological well-being rose appreciably with increasing core self-evaluations even among the high fear of fatness individuals, who ordinarily had very low psychological well-being. This indicated that core self-evaluations significantly moderated the impact of fear of fatness on psychological well-being.
Conclusions/Recommendation: Fear of fatness is very high among university students in Nigeria. Counselling and psycho-educational programmes should be organized for young people with a view to educating them on self-acceptance and core self-evaluations, thereby boosting their psychological well-being.