Good relationships make women more satisfied with their weight

That is the conclusion of research to be presented at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology in York.

For her research Sabina Vatter from Tallinn University collected quantitative data from 256 women aged between 20 and 45, of whom 71.5 per cent were cohabiting and 28.5 per cent were married. The women answered questions about their body weight, previous experience of diets, their self-esteem and body image self-consciousness, as well as about the intimacy and satisfaction of their relationships.

Sabina Vatter found that women who were satisfied with their relationship also tended to be more satisfied with their body weight whether or not they were at their "ideal" weight. Such women also had higher self-esteem and lower self-consciousness.

Sabina Vatter says: "We also found that women who had previously been on a diet or being on diet during data collection were less satisfied with their body weight, weighed themselves more often, were more self-conscious and had higher BMI's than women who have not been on a diet.

"These findings suggest that our satisfaction with body size, shape and weight has more to do with how happy we are in important areas of our lives, like our romantic relationships, than it does with what the bathroom scales say."