Examining Positive Perceptions of Others’ Weight Loss in Relation to Eating Intentions and Behaviors, Psychological Distress, and Body Shape Concerns

Through a series of preregistered and exploratory analyses, this study examined whether a person’s perceptions of someone who has lost weight relate to physical health, psychological health, and body image outcomes for oneself. U.S. adults ( N = 206) were asked to think of someone who has lost weight and report their perceptions of that person following weight loss (e.g., the person is happier/healthier after losing weight). Participants also completed self-report measures of eating intentions and behaviors, psychological distress, weight and body concerns, and exercise motivation and behavior. Results showed that positive perceptions of another person’s weight loss were associated with healthy eating intentions and exercise motivation, but also with restrictive eating indicators and body shape concerns prior to correcting for multiple correlations. Body shape concerns statistically mediated the associations of positive weight-loss perceptions with both dieting intentions and restrained eating and with uncontrolled eating and emotional eating, such that positively perceiving another person’s weight loss related to concerns about one’s own body and body shape concerns related to maladaptive eating patterns. However, these modeled indirect effects were non-significant when controlling statistically for participants’ sex, age, and either perceived weight status or body mass index. Positive weight loss perceptions were not directly associated with psychological distress, uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, or exercise behavior. These preliminary results suggest the possibility that viewing another person’s weight loss favorably relates to unhealthy eating intentions and behaviors and to concerns about one’s own body. Our findings have implications for understanding weight-related messages in the form of exposure to another person’s weight loss, and the exploratory nature of this work illuminates necessary and interesting avenues for future research.