Date of Award
Spring 2021
Rights
Access is available to all users
Date Available to Non-EWU Users
2022-05-27
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: General/Experimental
Department
Psychology
Abstract
Many bariatric weight loss surgery patients do not exercise after surgery. One potential reason this population may not exercise is due to body image shame and low self-compassion, which can contribute to lower appreciation for one’s body. Adult participants from an international bariatric population sample (N = 805) and an Eastern Washington University undergraduate student sample (N = 104) completed a one-time online questionnaire that included measures of self-compassion, physical activity frequency, body appreciation, and body image shame. In the bariatric sample, self-compassion was indirectly associated with exercise frequency via body appreciation and body image shame. Additionally, at the highest levels of self-compassion, exercise frequency was negatively impacted by the highest levels of body image shame. These results were not found in the undergraduate sample. Moving forward, interventions targeting self-compassion, body appreciation, and body image shame may help support members of the bariatric surgery population’s physical activity efforts.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Teeter, Naomi, "Post-Bariatric surgery patients fail to exercise consistently: exploring the potential role of self-compassion" (2021). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 710.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/710
