The Influences of Social Pressure on Body Image and Eating Disturbances

• Main Authors: Yen-Hui Tang, 唐妍蕙
• Other Authors: Ya-Wen Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3gnv88

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 公共衛生研究所 === 92 === Abstract Negative body image and eating disturbances have become prevalent health problems among adolescents in Western countries. Few studies addressed the problem of eating disturbances in Taiwan and even these few are mostly limited to clinical case reports and to the investigation of personal risk factors. Very few examined socio-cultural factors. Further, most previous studies concerning body image focused on females only. Few of them addressed gender differences. Even among few studies that include both males and females, they used quantitative data to address the gender differences. There is a serious lack of substantive and qualitative analyses of the implications of the gender differences. This study intends to examine the problem of eating disturbances in adolescents and analyze how the social factors, such as media, peers and families, influence their body image and eating disturbance problems. The study also discusses the social implication of the gender differences in eating disorders. The method of this study combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The data are collected from the clinical anamnesis, focus groups, magazines, National Health Insurance research database and a questionnaire survey. The sample of the latter includes 497 high school students from Taipei and Tainan City. The results show that adolescents are generally dissatisfied with their body image. Those who are more exposed to the popular fashion messages from media and who are more influenced by media, peers and families show more negative body image and are more inclined to have eating disorders. Females, in contrast with males, are exposed to weight-lose messages more frequently and are more likely to be criticized of their body by peers and families. They are also more likely to worry about their weight gain; to have a drive for thinness; to be on diet; and to try to lose weight. Their dissatisfaction with their body image and their likelihood to have eating disorder problems are also significantly greater than their male counterparts. The social pressure of ideal body image is constructed by the fashion and the culture toward the admiration of thinness, which is carried through media and through the friendly supervision and criticism by their peers and families. This social pressure subsequently leads to the adolescent’s negative body image and eating disturbances. Finally, the impact of this social pressure differs by gender, with females becoming the objects of restrain and the victims of health by the ideal body shape.