Relative body weight and self-esteem among African Americans in four nationally representative samples

Objective: Obesity is an increasingly common health problem among African Americans, especially women, in the United States. However, limited data are available on the psychological correlates of obesity in this population. This study examined the association between self-esteem and relative body weight (RBW) in four large nationally representative samples of African American individuals. Research Methods and Procedures: Data from The Adolescent Health Care Evaluation Study, The National Longitudinal Sun ey of Youth, The High School and Beyond, and The National Survey of Black Americans were analyzed. Within each database, regression analyses tested the association between RBW and self-esteem while adjusting for age and sex. Results: In three of the four databases, there was no significant association between RBW and self-esteem. In the only database detecting a statistically significant effect, the magnitude of the effect was small. The combined effects of RBW and its interaction with age and sex accounted for <2% of the variance in self-esteem across databases. Discussion: Results suggest that elevated RBW is not associated with a poorer general self-concept, on average, among African American individuals.