Restrictive diet or excessive exercise: ¿What are the adolescents choose to reduce the size? / Dieta restringida o ejercicio excesivo: ¿Qué eligen las adolescentes para reducir la talla?

The socio-cultural or peer pressure on pre-adolescents and adolescents who desire a perfect body figure can lead to the practice of excessive exercise and/or restrictive diet in order to achieve thinness. So the purpose of this study is to evaluate both factors in a group of Mexican women who practice organized and disciplined physical activity in an institutional framework and Mexican female who don't practice it. The sample consisted on N= 774 women: n=387 practice physical activity and n=387 do not exercise in a disciplined manner. The average age was M=11.8, SD=2.2 with a range between 9 and 16 years old. It was used a scale that measure dietary risk factors and one that measure excessive exercise. Results. An ANOVA generated a model that suggests that women who don't practice organized and disciplined exercise and are more exercise dependence, incur in more restrictive diet. It follows that among the girls who don't practice organized physical activity (exercise) dependence could be reduced to an attitude towards physical exercise combined with restricted diet, for weight control and reducing size. This suggests that physical activity, sports and recreational organized activities organized within an institutional framework promotes eating health. La presion cultural sobre puberes y adolescentes que desean una figura ideal puede orillarlas a la practica de ejercicio excesivo y/o dieta restringida con el fin de alcanzar la delgadez. Por ello el proposito del presente trabajo es evaluar ambos factores en un grupo de mujeres mexicanas que practican actividad fisica organizada y otro que no la practica. La muestra quedo formada por N=774 mujeres: n=387 practican ejercicio y n=387 no lo practican de forma disciplinada. La edad promedio fue M=11.8, DE= 2.2 con un rango de entre 9 y 16 anos. Se utilizo una escala que mide factores alimentarios de riesgo y una que mide factores deportivos. Resultados. Un ANOVA genero un modelo que sugiere que las mujeres que no practican actividad fisica organizada y que son mas dependientes al ejercicio incurren mas en la dieta restringida. De ello se deduce que entre las chicas que no practican actividad fisica organizada la dependencia al ejercicio podria reducirse a una actitud hacia el ejercicio fisico que ademas combinan con dieta restringida para controlar el peso y reducir la talla. Esto sugiere que la actividad fisico-deportiva-recreativa-organizada dentro de un marco institucional promueve la salud alimentaria.