Anxiety, fear and eating: a test of the psychosomatic concept of obesity.

Psychosomatic theorizing about obesity has held that overeating by obese individuals represents an attempt to cope with fear, anxiety, or other emotional disturbances. To test this hypothesis, 33 obese and 33 normal weight male college students were subjected to control, interpersonal anxiety, or objective fear treatments. The 5s then completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List and took a digit span test. Food consumption was measured by having 5s eat crackers for 15 min. under the guise of making taste discriminations. Although there were indications that the experimental treatments had been successful in arousing anxiety for obese Ss, no significant differences in cracker consumption were found. It was concluded that the results cast considerable doubt upon the tenability of the psychosomatic concept of obesity.