The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between eating disorders, and self esteem in female college students.

The survey was carried out on convenience sample of 388 college female students. The questionnaire consisted of each scale for eating disorder, self-esteem. The data was analyzed by the SPSS/PC using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, ANOVA, and Spearman correlation coefficient.

More than 43% of the subjects perceived their weight as overweight, while 1.5% of the women were obese as defined by BMI. About 57.4% of subjects were not satisfied with their body shape. Frequency of eating disorder was 5.93%. The score of eating disorder was high when the subjects had negative perception and low satisfaction with their body shape. The high scores of self-esteem were shown among the group who had high satisfaction on body shape. There was negative correlation between eating disorder and self-esteem(r=-.194, p=.000).

This study suggests that the nursing intervention was necessary for female college students to recognize healthier eating habits and increased their self-esteem.