Pre-surgical self-esteem is linked to greater reductions in depression following bariatric surgery: The moderating role of sex

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Robbie Woods* (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, Concordia University), Kim L. Lavoie (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, Université du Québec à Montréal), Ruth J. Bruno (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre), Li Anne Mercier (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, Université du Québec à Montréal), Cassandre A. Julien (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, Université du Québec à Montréal), Simon L. Bacon (Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, Concordia University), for the REBORN Team

Comments

  • Hey Robbie! Great poster and interesting findings. Our group has a paper under review looking at some similar constructs post bariatric surgery. One of the interesting things we saw was that changes in self esteem were associated with changes in body image, independent of how much weight people lost. Our sample was mostly women though, so we couldn’t look at interactions with sex. Your results make me wonder if some womens’ self esteem (and mood) could be more resistant to change with weight loss compared to mens’….I wonder if this could be explained by internalized weight bias in women. Maybe these internalized attitudes are more firmly ingrained in women, and tend to persist even with significant weight loss

    • Hi Tamara – That is an interesting question and so far we don’t have measures of body image or internalized weight bias. I would imagine that internalized weight bias would contribute to this effect as well as expectations surrounding weight loss. That is, the expectation of being below the obese class after surgery, and although recipients of weight loss surgeries do loss a tremendous about of weight, many maintain weight that is still classified as obese.

      • Also, Im curious what would happen to your effect if you control for sub features of depression?

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