Personalities and alimentary behaviors in obese patients

The actual tendency in the care of obese patients is the association of dietetic information with an eating behavior therapy. Studies attempting to attribute the origin of obesity to psychiatric pathologies are contradictory. We studied whether certain eating disorders are more specific to a personality type. We studied eating disorders with the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) test in 281 obese women compared to 252 age-matched non-obese women. Both obese patients and non-obese volunteers were divided into four groups depending upon their personality (PERSONA test). This test defines four types of personality, based on the level of emotion (expansive or reserved) and the degree of power (dominant or consenting). According to our study, eating disorders vary between the four personality groups and were significantly higher in the facilitating group (consenting and expansive) compared to the three other obese groups. Neither promoting (expansive and dominant) nor controlling obese patients (dominant and reserved) present eating disorders. The analyzing obese patients (reserved and consenting) are reticent when it comes to consulting (18%) since they distrust others. Analyzing obese patients present an interpersonal distrust and an interoceptive awareness. The group which presents most eating disorders is that of facilitating obese patients (consenting and expansive). These present eating disorders of the compulsive types favored by interoceptive awareness, body dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, and maturity fears. The diversity, even the absence, of eating disorders brought to evidence by our tests based upon different personality types should allow better understanding of the psychological and behavioral causes of weight gain and the means for improving compliance in the following of an obese patient.