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The relationship between feminine gender role stress and disordered eating symptomatology in women
Author(s) -
Mussap Alexander J.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
stress and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1532-2998
pISSN - 1532-3005
DOI - 10.1002/smi.1152
Subject(s) - psychology , disordered eating , assertiveness , clinical psychology , eating disorders , stress (linguistics) , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy
A questionnaire was administered to 124 women aged between 18 and 40 years (M = 24.49; SD = 4.9) to explore the relationship between feminine gender role stress and disordered eating symptomatology. Fear of being unattractive (a subscale of the Feminine Gender Role Stress scale) correlated with the dietary restraint, eating concern, bingeing and purging subscales of the Eating Disorder Examination‐Questionnaire, while fear of being assertive correlated with the eating concern subscale. These relationships were mediated primarily by body dissatisfaction and by a tendency towards overcontrol. Although interpretation is limited by the cross‐sectional design employed, these results add to evidence that the stress of conforming to the feminine role is associated with a range of unhealthy body change attitudes and behaviours. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.