Body image dissatisfaction and eating attitudes in visually impaired women

Abstract

Objective The high levels of body dissatisfaction and abnormal eating attitudes currently prevalent in Western societies have been attributed by many authors to the promotion of an unrealistically thin ideal for women. We investigated the role of the visual media by examining the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and eating attitudes in visually impaired women. Method: Questionnaires were administered to 60 women, 20 congenitally blind, 20 blinded later in life, and 20 sighted. Results: Congenitally blind women had lower body dissatisfaction scores and more positive eating attitudes compared to women blinded later in life and sighted women, the latter having the highest body dissatisfaction scores and the most negative eating attitudes. Scores from sighted women were positively correlated with each other. Discussion: The results suggest the importance of the visual media in promoting unrealistic images of thinness and beauty and are discussed from a sociocultural perspective. © 1998 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 24: 319–322, 1998.

Impact of today's media on university student's body image in Pakistan: a conservative, developing country's perspective

“…On the contrary, women had a higher prevalence of positive BID compared to men - 265 (65.0%) vs. 93 (24.7%) respectively. This is in contrast to other literature on this topic which shows that body image dissatisfaction (assumed to be negative only) is more prevalent in women than men [42-45]. In fact, according to a study conducted in America, many contemporary American women covet an unrealistically thin body build for themselves, a phenomenon that could be detrimental to their emotional and physical health [5].…”

A Critical Test of the Waist-to-Hip Ratio Hypothesis of Women's Physical Attractiveness in Britain and Greece

“…A follow-up study showed that this trend continued between 1979 and 1988: Miss America contestants continued to become thinner, and Playboy centrefolds fell into a plateau of very low BMIs (Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992). Others have examined body satisfaction and eating disorder symptamology as correlates of use of mass media (e.g., Abramson & Valene, 1991;Baker, Sivyer, & Towell, 1998;Cash, Cash, & Butters, 1983;Posavac, Posavac, & Weigel, 2001), the idea being that the mass media promulgate a slender ideal that elicits negative affect. Thus, the preference for relatively slender ideals in industrialised settings in the current study may be traced back to the emphasis on a slim physique and negative stereotyping of obese figures (Becker & Hamburg, 1996).…”

Examining the effects of hegemonic depictions of female bodies on television: a call for theory and programmatic research * This article was accepted by the previous CSMC editor, Dr. James W. Chesebro

“…Although they choose the ectomorphic (thin) body build as ideal, most women report that they have a more mesomorphic (muscular) build (Spillman & Everington, 1989). Confirming the role of the visual in perceptions of body image (albeit not necessarily media influence), women who are blind, or partially blind, are significantly less likely than sighted women to express body dissatisfaction and to display disordered eating attitudes (Baker, Sivyer, & Towell, 1998). Posavac, Posavac, and Posavac (1998) …”