Body image investment and self-regulation of weight control behaviors

Body image investment refers to the psychological significance that people attribute to their body image evaluations and to the consequences of those evaluations to their selfdefinition and adaptive functioning. The current social environment fosters the development of a dysfunctional body image investment, due to the high emphasis placed on the pursuit of ultra-slender body ideals and concurrent devaluation and stigmatization of overweight and obesity. Appearance becomes central to many people's identity, and their self-worth and well-being contingent on meeting the thin body ideals, achievable by only a few. As a result, many people, especially women, feel pressured to lose weight and end up engaging in unhealthy, often non-sustainable, behavioral efforts to lose weight and improve appearance. However, being motivated to lose weight for reasons such as changing appearance and body weight could be experienced as controlling and/or as a self-imposed pressure to engage in treatment. Consequently, it can elicit a less autonomous form of self-regulation regarding weight-related behaviors, which in turn might constitute an additional obstacle to successful and sustainable weight management. The available evidence consistently supports the adverse consequences of dysfunctional investment in appearance (which goes beyond body dissatisfaction) on people's psychosocial functioning and regulation of weight-related behaviors. Yet, in contrast to body dissatisfaction, the dimension of body image investment has often been ignored by researchers, including in obesity studies. Informed by self-determination theory, the authors will focus on describing the investment dimension of body image, explain how sociocultural demands contribute to the salience of a dysfunctional (as opposed to a more adaptive) investment in appearance, and discuss the motivational dynamics underpinning people's decisions to engage in weight control behaviors such as physical activity and eating patterns. Recent findings will be summarized, showing that the enhancement of body image investment during obesity treatment helps improving key psychosocial and behavioral variables that facilitate weight management. This information will be complemented with new data from ongoing research. Finally, implications for future weight control interventions will be addressed.