Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: media influences on the psychopathology of eating problems

Internalization of the Sociocultural Ideal: Weight-Related Attitudes and Dieting Behaviors among Young Adolescent Girls

Questionnaires returned from 234 fifth and sixth graders from 24 Girl Scout Troops in the Midwest showed that 29.3% of all girls and 68.7% of those who were dieting thought they were overweight. Most of those who were trying to lose weight were using healthy methods, but a few were using dangerous methods. Very few were unhappy with their weight, shape, and various body parts. Most appeared to be aware of the influence of media on body image and were accepting of a wide range of body shapes and sizes among themselves and their friends.

Exposure to ‘ideal’ facial images reduces facial satisfaction: an experimental study

OBJECTIVE

Psychological research has suggested that exposure to media images of 'ideal' female models has a negative impact on women's perception of their body image. The present study examined the effects of exposure to images of faces rated as high in attractiveness upon facial satisfaction, compared with exposure to 'neutral' stimuli.

METHODS

Participants comprised three groups of women: 24 women undergoing orthodontic treatment, 22 patients undergoing orthognathic treatment, and 20 women receiving no current dental treatment. All completed measures of facial and body image satisfaction after viewing images of houses or faces as follows: The Body Satisfaction Scale, The Revised Body Image Scale of Secord and Jourard and a Visual Analogue Scale measuring satisfaction with Facial Appearance. A repeated-measures design was adopted with a 4-6-week period between experimental conditions. All participants were randomly assigned to one of the two orders (Houses-Faces or Faces-Houses). The findings were analysed using general linear modelling analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Exposure to idealized images of faces resulted in a significant decrease in facial satisfaction when compared with the control condition (mean facial satisfaction for all participants in Faces condition, Body Satisfaction Scale-Head Scale = 22.2, SD = 7.81; Revised Body Image Scale-Facial Subscale = 25.5, SD = 4.57; VAS = 7.8, SD = 2.47; Mean facial satisfaction for all participants in Houses condition, Body Satisfaction Scale-Head scale = 19.5, SD = 6.81; Revised Body Image Scale-Facial Subscale = 26.8, SD = 4.87; VAS = 6.2, SD = 2.72).

CONCLUSIONS

Media may exert a negative influence on self-perception, particularly amongst individuals who, for one reason or another, are sensitive to the appearance of their face. The findings of the present study have implications for the demand for orthodontic treatment for aesthetic enhancement at a time when resources are limited. Interventions are discussed to help individuals question their acceptance of such media messages.

Can body image education programs be harmful to adolescent females?

The aim of the study was to evaluate two body image education posters to determine whether such preventive strategies have any negative effects on the body image of adolescent females. Female school students (N = 328) of mean age 14.4 (SD = 1.8) years from six high schools evaluated two body image education posters using a questionnaire. Participants made suggestions for improving the posters and conducting future body image interventions. The posters were rated as not-beneficial by 28% of participants; 35% did not like the posters, and 69% did not want their own copy, the major reason being that self-comparison with the teenage models in the poster made them feel worse about themselves. The 5 Girls poster was rated lowest among older girls. Eight percent of girls did not know what message the posters were meant to portray and 8% received an incorrect or harmful message from the posters. This research suggests that educational initiatives to improve body image in adolescent girls may have negative effects. Planning of preventive interventions should involve program recipients and the educational materials should be pretested to prevent unintended and potentially harmful outcomes.

Families: accounts of the causal processes in food choice

Much of the previous research into the processes involved in food choice has made use of methodologies that neglect the social and familial context in which such decisions are made. The study reported here used a different approach to gather qualitative data from family members regarding their decision processes in the form of naturally expressed social explanations or attributions. Interviews were conducted with 149 family members from a total of 83 British families from four locations. The participants were encouraged to discuss their own personal experience of food choice, including their dietary decisions and behaviours and the factors involved in the process, using systemic interviewing techniques. The 52 h of interview material obtained were subjected to attributional analysis using the Leeds Attributional Coding System (LACS), a qualitative research tool designed for work with families. The data, in the form of 7062 fully coded belief statements or attributions, provided some preliminary observations of the way that families understand and socially explain their food-based decisions. The approach offers a different perspective on family food choice to those provided through more traditional experimental research and surveys.