Same pie, different portions: shape and weight‐based self‐esteem and eating disorder symptoms in a Georgian sample

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective:</jats:title><jats:p>Current diagnostic criteria for eating disorders emphasize the importance of issues concerning weight and shape for self‐esteem and self‐worth. However, this requirement is based on patients presenting at clinics in Western countries and it is not clear whether such overvaluation of weight and shape is also a feature of eating pathology in non‐Western women.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method:</jats:title><jats:p>Two hundred and forty‐five women from Georgia (part of the former Soviet Union) completed a number of questionnaires measuring eating pathology, anxiety and depression. In addition, participants completed two measures concerning their evaluation of weight and shape (overvaluation of weight/shape and shape‐ and weight‐based self‐esteem).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results:</jats:title><jats:p>Both overvaluation of weight and shape and shape‐ and weight‐based self‐esteem were significantly correlated with measures of eating pathology, even after partialling out the effects of anxiety and depression. In addition, the majority of these women desired a thinner body shape. Despite the associations between weight/shape‐based self‐esteem and eating pathology, the overall degree to which women based their self‐esteem on weight and shape was less than that reported in other studies using Western samples.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion:</jats:title><jats:p>Despite differences in culture, language and location, the women of Georgia appear to share with Western women their dissatisfaction with body shape. In addition, processes that underlie eating pathology may also be similar (namely overvaluation of weight/shape and shape‐ and weight‐based self‐esteem). Given that Georgian women have had differing exposure to western consumerism and marketing it is interesting that the same processes may be operating. With increasing exposure to a Western ideal of thinness portrayed in films, fashion and advertising, we can perhaps expect an increase in the prevalence of pathological eating syndromes. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.</jats:p></jats:sec>