Adolescent Girls :: essays research papers

This study examined the perceived role of three types of sociocultural agents (peers, p arents, and media) in influencing body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint in insipid girls. Participants were 577 grade 10 girls from six schools who completed questionnaires in class and had height and weight measured. Two path analyses resulted in a similar pattern. While trustworthy body size strongly predicted ideal body size and body dissatisfaction, perceived influence of multiple sociocultural agents regarding thinness also had a propose relationship with body ideal and dissatisfaction. Dietary restraint was predicted directly from body dissatisfaction and sociocultural influences. Peers, parents, and media varied in their perceived influence. The findings support the idea that those girls who show the close to body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint live in a subculture supporting a thin ideal and encouraging dieting.Body concerns and/or dieting behaviors are reported by mast a dolescent girls (Paxton et at, 1991 Wadden, Forster, Stunkard, & Linowitz, 1989 Wertheim, Paxton, Maude, Gibbons, Szmulker, & Hillier, 1992). Although body concerns may lead to healthy eating choices and exercise in some girls, many another(prenominal) others diet despite already being a healthy weight or report using unhealthy methods such as fasting or vomiting (Paxton et al., 1991 Wadden et al., 1989 Wertheim et al., 1992). These latter behaviors are of concern since longitudinal studies suggest that dieting in adolescence is a risk factor for the development of eating disorder symptoms (Killen et al., 1994 Leon, Fulkerson, Perry, & Early-Zaid, 1995 Patton, Johnson-Sabine, Wood, Mann, & Wakeling, 1990).Most theories of dieting, body image, and eating disorders set apart a major role to sociocultural factors (Levine & Smolak, 1992 Stice, 1994), such as the media. There has been a trend in the media, over several decades, for smaller ideal pistillate body size despite increases in the actual body size of young women (ODea, 1995). These findings have led to the idea that body dissatisfaction results from the discrepancy between a females actual body size and an ideal size strongly influenced by images in the media.Indeed, larger girls (those farthest from media ideals) report more dieting and body dissatisfaction, and many normal-weight girls also diet and report dissatisfaction (Huon, 1994 Patton et al., 1990 Paxton et al., 1991 Wadden et al.