Pressure to be perfect: Influences on college students' body esteem

An Examination of Perfectionism and Body Esteem on the Eating Patterns of Male and Female College Students, 2015

In today’s modern food-rich nations staying physically in shape and conforming to societal body ideals is becoming increasingly difficult, yet these physical ideals are being continually brought to people’s everyday attention in the media and advertising. This paper explores the effects of body-esteem and perfectionism on ones risk of having patterns of disturbed eating and the dieting differences between male and female college students. Participants (n = 66) who completed the measures were psychology students from Humboldt State University The examination of body-esteem and perfectionism found that people with low body-esteem and high levels of perfectionism tended to have a higher risk for having abnormal eating patterns. Body-esteem was found to be the most significant contributor to abnormal eating patterns while perfectionism was not. Men and women did not show any significant difference in their eating patterns, while significantly more men were dieting than women in our sample. Men and women also showed equal strength in their abilities to resist tempting foodcues. These findings suggest that body-esteem is an important factor in the examination of eating patterns in male and female college students.

Academic Psychiatry, 2006

Journal of Social and …

Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, 2019

The present study was planned to explore the relationship between body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, and media exposure among adolescents. Sample of young adults (N = 376) students including boys (n = 174) and girls (n = 202) of age range from 16 to 21 years (M = 18.2; SD = 1.24) took part in the research. Multidimensional Self-Relations Questionnaire Appearance Scale (Cash, 2000), Perfectionism Inventory (Hill et al., 2004) and Media Exposure list (Hayee, 2012) were used to assess study variables. The outcomes demonstrated that body areas satisfaction has negative connection while appearance orientation has positive association with perfectionism. Young ladies scored high on appearance orientation, overweight preoccupation, self-classified weight, and perfectionism while scored low on appearance evaluation and body areas satisfaction when contrasted with young men. Media exposure moderates the relationship between body areas satisfaction and perfectionism. These results have essential ramifications for future counteractive action and intercession endeavors which need to target teenagers' particularly young ladies at early age when convictions and worries about weight and shape are less fortified.

2011

Journal of Adolescence, 2000

The study aimed to investigate the body concerns of adolescent girls, together with the underlying motivations for the wish to be thinner. Focus group methodology was employed in order to access participants' experience in their own language. Altogether 67 girls of Year 11 (aged approximately 16 years) took part in five groups. Audiotaped and transcribed discussions were systematically coded for themes and rated on frequency, extensiveness, intensity, specificity and level of agreement. As expected, sociocultural influences, in particular the media, were reported as exerting the strongest pressures to be thin. More importantly, however, the girls displayed an unexpected sophistication in their conceptualization of the role of both media effects and body image in the construction of their self-image. Contrary to assumptions made in quantitative research, despite clearly articulating a desire to be thinner, the girls also described how this did not necessarily mean they were dissatisfied with their bodies. The findings suggest that the girls' meta-awareness and sophisticated understanding of the media and other pressures, may serve to moderate against these forces which would otherwise seem overwhelming.

Women's Studies International Forum, 1991

Synopsis-This article presents a socio-cultural and political-economic perspective on eating disorders. We argue that the current outbreak of eating disorders and weight obsession among women is part of a larger historical transformation of women's bodies into commodities through a "marriage" between capitalistic and patriarchal interests. These interests have transformed women's body image increasingly toward an ultra-slender ideal. We explore the relationship between eating disorders and ultra-slenderness by focusing on the eating habits and attitudes of a sample of college students. Results indicate that women were more likely than men to follow an ultra-slender "cultural" model of ideal weight. Women who follow a cultural model were three times more likely to score abnormally high on a standard measure of eating disorders than women who follow a less stringent "medical" model of ideal weight. These results are not confounded with psychological correlates typically associated with clinical eating disorders. We discuss alternative visions and solutions to eating disorders from a socio-cultural and political-economic perspective.

European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2014

posited in objectification theory among media-ideal internalization, self-objectification, shame and anxiety surrounding the body and appearance, dietary restraint, and binge eating. Data collected from 685 adolescents aged between 14 and 15 at baseline (47 % males), who were interviewed and completed standardized measures annually over a 3-year period, were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach. Results indicated that media-ideal internalization predicted later thinking and scrutinizing of one's body from an external observer's standpoint (or self-objectification), which then predicted later negative emotional experiences related to one's body and appearance. In turn, these negative emotional experiences predicted subsequent dietary restraint and binge eating, and each of these core features of eating disorders influenced each other. Differences in the strength of these associations across gender were not observed, and all indirect effects were significant. The study provides valuable information about how the cultural values embodied by gendered beauty ideals negatively influence adolescents' feelings, thoughts and behaviors regarding their own body, and on the complex processes involved in disordered eating. Practical implications are discussed.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Media influence may lead adolescents to internalize patterns of physical beauty, resulting in dissatisfaction with their own bodies when they are unable to match up to these patterns. In the constant search for an ‘ideal body’, adolescents may begin to develop risk behaviors for the development of eating disorders (ED). The object of this study was to analyze the influence of the mass media on body dissatisfaction (BD) and on ED in adolescents, comparing genders. We also analyzed the influence of BD on the risk of developing unsuitable eating behaviors, with risk of ED, comparing genders. A cross-sectional study was carried out with 1011 adolescents: 527 girls and 484 boys. The BMI of each adolescent was determined, and the instruments EAT-26, Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3), and body shape questionnaire (BSQ), were applied. For statistical analysis, we used Student’s t-test, the chi-square test, Pearson’s correlation test, the odds ratio, and hi...

Canadian Journal of …, 2007