TOPLINE

Adults who felt more ashamed of their weight reported more "food noise," or intrusive, distressing thoughts about food, about a year after bariatric surgery, despite their weight staying stable. The link was tied to how harshly patients judged themselves rather than fear of others' judgment.

METHODOLOGY

• Weight self-stigma, common before bariatric surgery and tied to less weight loss afterward, may also be linked to "food noise," which tends to ease with obesity treatment. However, previous research on food noise has focused on GLP-1 drugs rather than surgery.
• Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis using baseline data from a larger trial and included 60 adults (mean age, 44.7 years; 86.7% women) who had gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy a mean of 13.3 months earlier and whose weight was within 10% of their lowest postoperative weight.
• Weight self-stigma was measured using a validated self-report questionnaire having two domains: self-devaluation (feeling inferior or ashamed because of weight) and fear of enacted stigma (worry about being judged by others). A total score of 36 or higher indicated clinically significant weight self-stigma.
• Food noise was measured using a separate validated self-report questionnaire; a score of 10 or higher on this indicated above-average food noise.

TAKEAWAY

• A majority of participants (58.3%; 35 of 60) had clinically significant weight self-stigma, and 45.0% (27 of 60) experienced above-average food noise.
• Participants with higher total weight self-stigma scores were more likely to have higher food noise scores (P = .001).
• Domain-wise analysis showed that greater self-devaluation was significantly associated with higher food noise (P = .021); however, fear of enacted stigma was not significantly associated.

IN PRACTICE

"Because WSS [weight self-stigma] and food noise may undermine healthy behaviors, weight loss and maintenance, and health gains after MBS [metabolic bariatric surgery], routine screening and adjunctive interventions to mitigate these risks may be appropriate in clinical MBS practice," the authors wrote.

SOURCE

The study was led by Dale S. Bond, Digestive Health Institute, Hartford HealthCare, Hartford, Connecticut. It was published online as a Brief Cutting Edge Report in Obesity.

LIMITATIONS

The study was cross-sectional; therefore, it could not show whether greater weight self-stigma caused more food noise or the reverse, or whether the association developed before or after weight stabilized. The researchers used one questionnaire for each measure, and other validated tools that measure different aspects of self-stigma and food noise might have produced different results. As participants were drawn from a trial designed to boost physical activity after surgery, they might not represent the wider group of bariatric patients.

DISCLOSURES

This study was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Several authors reported serving as consultants or research consultants or receiving consulting fees and grant funding from various companies.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.