The relationship of self esteem and mood state with anthropometric measurements and nutritional status in adult individuals

The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship of self esteem and mood state with anthropometric measurements and nutritional status in adult individuals, and to provide an insight for the future studies. The study recruited 100 participants from Ankara, whose age are 20-64 years, who referred to the Sıla Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Centre between January 2015 and April 2015. When the association of self esteem and mood levels with body mass index (BMI) groups was evaluated, overall self esteem and mood levels of males and females did not demonstrate a significant difference in BMI groups (p>0.05). No significant difference was observed in protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake levels of males and females regarding their mood levels (p>0.05). In females, a negative correlation at the rate of 29.5% was found between the beck depression scale and the percentage of fat intake, while depression score had no significant correlation with other nutritional parameters (p>0.05). In males, it was detected that self esteem scale had a negative correlation at the rate of 28.1% with energy intake levels and 29.9% with the saccharose intake (p>0.05). When the participants were examined as a whole, Beck depression scale had 29.5% negative correlation with the percentage of fat intake (p<0.05), while there was no significant correlation found between self esteem scale and other nutritional parameters (p<0.05). The analysis results of females demonstrated that there was a significant difference in their mood levels regarding the contentment with their weight (p>0.05), while no significant difference was found in self esteem levels considering their weight contentment (p>0.05). On the other hand, in males, mood levels and self esteem showed no significant difference in their weight contentment (p>0.05). The results of the analysis suggest that self esteem levels of males and females showed no significant difference regarding the frequency of meal skipping (p>0.05). The results from our study indicate that differences in anthropometric measurement did not change individuals' self esteem and mood levels. Very few nutritional parameters were found to change the scores of self esteem and mood scales, however; we observed that most nutritional parameters did not have a relationship with self esteem and mood levels. Key Words; body mass index, mental health, depressive symptom, self esteem, nutritional status