Abstract

ROJAS RAMIREZ, Ana Teresa  and  GARCIA MENDEZ, Mirna. Family functioning as a predictor of alexithymia according to body mass index. Acta de investigación psicol [online]. 2016, vol.6, n.2, pp.2469-2476. ISSN 2007-4719.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aipprr.2016.06.010.

Alexithymia is a cognitive-affective disorder that causes a deficiency in the ability to identify, describe and express feelings (Sifneos, 1973), is related with familiar environment dysfunctional, as the involvement of the parents in the emotional needs of their children (Kind & Mallinckrodt, 2000). From this approach, the goal of the research was to determine if family functioning predicts alexithymia in persons with Body Mass Index (BMI) of normal weight, overweight and obesity. 428 collaborated voluntarily. Participated adults living in the Mexico City(M = 40 years, SD = 7.8) who responded to the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby, Parker & Taylor, 1994), Scale of Family Functioning (Garcia Mendez et al., 2006) and reported their height and weight to get their BMI. Analysis of stepwise linear regression were performed and the results suggest that in people with overweight and obesity, factors cohesion/rules and hostility/avoidance conflict are predictors of alexithymia. In normoweight, forecasters were command/problems in expressing feelings and cohesion/rules. These results show clearly that dysfunctional relationships facilitate the presence of behaviours related to alexithymia.

Keywords : Alexithymia; Family functioning; Emotions; Body mass index; Culture.

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