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Perception of body shapes by anorexics and mature and teenage females
Author(s) -
Baluch Bahman,
Furnham Adrian,
Huszcza Anna
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199702)53:2<167::aid-jclp10>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , developmental psychology , neuroscience
Three groups of females‐Anorexic (mean age 28). Teenage (mean age 16), and Mature adults (mean age 27)‐were shown four male and four female body drawings ranging from very thin to very fat and asked to rate them on four categories (attractive healthy confident and popular) using a 10‐point bipolar scale. A predicted and consistent pattern occurred, namely that the anorexics rated fatter women less attractive, less healthy, less confident and less popular than teenagers and mature females, while at the same time rating male body shapes more attractive than did the two other female groups. Both anorexic and teenage groups rated the thinner women as more attractive, health, confident, and popular than the mature females. Both mature and teenage females rated the fat female body shape more positively than did the anorexics. The implications of these findings are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.