Feeling 'too fat' rather than being 'too fat' increases unhealthy eating habits among adolescents - even in boys.

Background: Adolescence is a period of gender-specific physical changes, during which eating habits develop. To better understand what factors determine unhealthy eating habits such as dieting to lose weight, skipping meals, and consumption of unhealthy foods, we studied how physical measurements and body perception relate to eating habits in boys and girls, before and during adolescence.

Methods: For this cross-sectional study, we obtained data from both written questionnaires and physical measurements of height, weight, and waist circumference (WC).