Author(s)

Graziela Sapienza¹, Teresa Helena Schoen², Mauro Fisberg²

¹Department of Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil.
²Department of Pediatric, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

Socially competent people using better strategies for solving interpersonal problems are more readily accepted by peers and valued by adults. Obese individuals, especially teenagers, have deficits in several social skills, which lead to damage to the relationships, self-esteem and in their valuation by social agents. This study examines how the literature of the last decade associates the components of social competence to obesity in adolescents. The research was carried out in electronic databases in the period between Jan. 2005 and Dec. 2015, resulting in 329 articles. 303 were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria, and 26 original articles have been analyzed. The results showed that the components of social competence were negatively associated with obesity and most studies focused on self-esteem, pattern of interaction with peers and social relationship. The social competence was highlighted as important for interventions aimed at reducing weight.

Obesity, Adolescence, Social Competence, Social Skills, Prevention

Sapienza, G. , Helena Schoen, T. and Fisberg, M. (2017) Social Competence and Obesity in Teenagers: An Analysis of the Last Ten Years of Studies. Health, 9, 1618-1631. doi: 10.4236/health.2017.912119.