Approach and avoidance: Relations with the thin body ideal in women with disordered eating behavior

Women in the western world are exposed to images of attractiveness, beauty, and ideal body shape and size by daily mass media. As early as 1999, Malkin and colleagues reported that the beauty ideal is young and especially thin (Malkin et al., 1999). Today, models presented by the mass media usually have a body weight 15% below their healthy weight (Martin, 2010), and a high drive for thinness (Swami and Szmigielska, 2013) which are known as core symptoms of eating disorders. Nevertheless, this ideal is associated with beauty, fitness, and health (Hassel, 2002) and a lot of women strive for that “perfect body”.
Source: Psychiatry Research - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research