Believing you are fat in your teens could lead to weight gain later in life, a new study has found.
Norwegian researchers found that 60 percent of teenage girls who thought they were fat even though they weren’t went on to become overweight in their twenties.
Girls with no weight issues in their teens were half as likely (30 percent) to gain weight before their 30th birthday.
Related: Girls, 12, skipping meals because they’re too fat
Fad diets, skipping meals in an effort to slim down and the stress of constantly worrying about one’s weight are thought to be to blame for the dramatic weight gain in body-conscious teens.
“Girls in particular tend to consider themselves as overweight, even though they are not, which may lead to psychosocial stress and unhealthy weight control practices such as skipping meals,” the researchers said.
“This study demonstrates that the adolescents, classified as normal weight though perceiving themselves as overweight, have a larger weight gain into young adulthood than those who do not experience self-perceived overweight.”
Interestingly, the same was not true of boys. While 60 percent of those who felt fat as teenagers went on to become overweight, so did 50 percent of those who were happy with their body size.
Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology examined a survey of 1200 healthy-sized teens aged 13 to 19.
The participants were asked how they felt about their weight, and whether they believed themselves to be fat.
The responses were compared with those given in a follow-up survey 11 years later.
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They found that those who described themselves as “chubby” or “very fat” as teenagers were far more likely to have become overweight or obese by the time of the next survey.
The study was published in the Journal of Obesity.
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