[Self-perception in obese patients].

Background: The perception of obese people has about themselves is often paradoxical, seeing themselves with several virtues and flaws that take them to have an ambiguous attitude about themselves. The aim was to evaluate the perception that the obese people has about their body and relationships.

Method: Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire was applied; obtaining a descriptive analysis (mean and standard deviation) of each item and contrasting by gender (male and female) and proposal treatment (surgical and nonsurgical).

Results: Significant differences were found (p value<.05) between genders and type of treatment in some phrases of the applied questionnaire.

Conclusions: Self-perception in the obese patient seems to be strongly related to the perception that society has of them, which is usually negative in relation to their appearance. Patients tend to perceive themselves as unappealing, although this perception is greater in patients canalized to surgical treatment; likewise, tendency to think about their appearance is greater in non-surgical patients. About personal care, it was found that participants pay less attention to improving their personal appearance, women having a slightly greater concern.