The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with young adults' concerns about age related changes in body image and their anticipated impact on psychosocial functioning. One hundred and sixty-seven college students completed the Body Image and Aging Survey, designed to assess age related issues in body image, the Peer Dieting Survey,…

Dissatisfaction with body image among women has become a major psychological and physical contemporary problem. This study is among the few to empirically suggest that overall body satisfaction is strongly related to perceived discrepancy of one's body image from ideal societal standards of attractiveness. This study also identifies the personal…

Franzoi and Shields (1984) described the development of a 35-item scale for measuring body esteem and discussed the factor structure, reliability, and validity of that scale. They reported finding three dimensions of body esteem for young men and women in the scale they developed, although the factors differed between the sexes and were more…

An examination of the interaction of social and cultural influences on body image development may yield an explanation for the development of eating disorder behavior, especially in understanding the special problems facing women athletes. There appear to be two major sociocultural factors influencing the development of body image in the…

Due to concerns that body shape preferences contribute to eating disorders among women, a new method to assess observer preferences for female body shapes was devised. In prior studies women have preferred thin models, but men have preferred models of average weight. In Experiment 1, an underweight female model was photographed in a white top and…

Until recently, understanding about women's health has been traditionally mediated by the medical model, which tends to regard each health problem in a vacuum. Such an approach ignored important considerations, such as body image. In an effort to explore this health factor, a review of the literature regarding women's health and its relation to…

The effects of early versus synchronous onset of puberty and dating on the eating attitudes and behaviors of 79 sixth- and eighth-grade girls were compared. Girls with synchronous onset had higher scores on the children's version of the Eating Attitudes Test and greater body dissatisfaction. Implications are discussed. (SLD)