BODY PERCEPTION, BODY-ESTEEM, AND EATING ATTITUDES OF FEMALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate body perception, body esteem and eating attitudes of female students at university. Data was collected among 432 female students of Chulalongkorn University. These students were classified into three levels according to their body mass index from 4 fields of study (108 students in each group), by using multistage and convenience sampling technique. The self-administered questionnaire comprised multiple measures of body perception, body-esteem, and eating attitudes test/EAT-26 was used to collect the data. A One-way ANOVA analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyze the data. The finding shows that female students whose body perception was thin had higher body-esteem than those whose perceptions were slender and fats. Female students whose body perception was fat had higher and negative attitudes toward eating than those whose perceptions were slender and thin. There is no significant different in eating attitudes among female students whose body perception was slender and thin. Significant and negative correlation was found between BE-Appearance, BE-Weight and eating attitudes (p < .01). In term of the predictive abilities, all predictors (BE-Appearance, BE-Weight and BE-Attribution) together accounted for 21 percent of the variance in predicting eating attitudes.