Nabeela Mumtaz, Sadia Malik.
Relationship between social anxiety and eating attitudes among young girls.
Pak J Med Res Jan ;57(1):45-6.

A convenient sample of 500 young girls having age range from 14 to 24 years were recruited after taking informed consent in this study from various schools and colleges of Sargodha through convenient sampling technique. Urdu versions of Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale 9 and Eating Attitudes Test 10 (consists of three subscales including dieting, bulimia and food preoccupations, and oral control) and were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 22.0). The analysis indicated that there was significant positive correlation of social anxiety with dieting subscale (Table-1). Table-2 manifests simple linear regression analysis computed for dieting, a subscale of eating attitudes as dependent variable and social anxiety as independent variable. The value of ?R2 0.15 indicates 2% variance in the outcome variable can be accounted for, by the predictor [F (1,498) = 11.10, p <0.01]. Results states that social anxiety (?= .15, p <0.01), was significant positive predictor of dieting.Table-3 shows Mean, standard deviation and F-values for students belonging to three education levels. The findings indicate significant mean difference on eating attitudes among students [F (3,497), p <0.001]. The findings indicate that students belonging to Matric (M = 16.69, p <0.001) significantly scored higher on eating attitudes as compared to students belonging to BA (M = 7.49, p <0.001), FA (M = 13.81, p <0.001).Comments Disturbed eating disorders are specifically prevalent among young girls in both developed and under developed countries for many years and increasing very rapidly. One reason for disturbed eating attitudes might be age. This age period is considered as a period of emotional turmoil as many physical and emotional changes are happening which can affect the health and routine of adolescents in many directions. Social pressures could be another factor as it causes anxiety among young people that they must meet the set criteria of physical beauty in their society which consequently developed disturbed and maladaptive eating attitudes. Present study will be helpful for the clinicians and parents with reference to Pakistani culture to understand possible causes of social anxiety and eating attitudes, and it would also be helpful in developing interventions for disturbed eating attitudes.

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