Body build and the desire for slenderness in young people

Abstract

The median weight-for-height of young people in Brisbane are below the 'standard' values. In most groups the weight-for-height are symmetrically distributed, suggesting that this is the range of normal variation. Only among girls aged 15-1 9 years was there an excess of 'obese' subjects.Almost all girls and young women say they want to lose weight, even though many are already well below the 'standard'. This trend is also present, but is less marked, among boys and young men. In these young people the desire for slenderness is causing unhappiness that seems out of proportion to the possible benefits of change. Health professionals should encourage a more balanced attitude to physiological variations in weight-for-height among young people.

The Relationship of Pubertal Status to Body Image, Social Physique Anxiety, Preoccupation with Weight and Nutritional Status in Young Females

“…Popularity is synonymous with attractiveness and attractiveness is equated with thinness, thus, maintaining a normal body weight does not suffice for society's standards of beauty. 22,32,34,35 Subsequently, a young female feels that it is important to obtain a thin physique in order to make a favourable impression on her peers. In the current study the postpubescent females, who may be influenced by their peers to a greater extent than the pre-and early pubescent females, had the greatest dissatisfaction with their body shape and experienced the highest levels of social physique anxiety.…”

“…that represented variations in levels of body fatness in the physique of young females. The BIQ was modified from an instrument used by Dwyer et al 21 and Carrol et al 22 to represent variations in the physique of young females rather than that of adult females.…”

Women's body attitudes: A review of measurement techniques

“…The most common finding from all these studies is that normal females of most ages from early adolescence up nominate a normal to overweight silhouette as their present shape and a thinner silhouette as their ideal (Brennan & Kevany, 1985;Carroll, Gleeson, Ribsby, & Dugdale, 1986;Counts & Adams, 1985). There appears to be no reliability data reported in the mainstream literature on silhouette measures of body attitudes, either test-retest or otherwise.…”

The Effect of the Media on Body Satisfaction: the Role of Gender and Size

“…It expresses itself behaviourally in t e r n of attempts to restrain food intake and episodes of overeating (Herman and Mack, 1975;Herman and Polivy, 1984;Ogden and Wardle, 1991;Ogden, 1992). It is also expressed in discrepancies between perceived and desired body size and in feeling fat (Brennan and Kevenew, 1985;Counts and Adams, 1985;Carroll et al, 1986; Thompson and Thompson, 1986). In addition, body size overestimation and body size distortion has been shown when measured using a visual size estimation apparatus (Slade and Russell, 1973;Halmi et d., 1977) and a body image marking technique (Pierloot and Houben, 1978) (1991) for a comprehensive review).…”