Abnormal Psychology

Eating Disorders 459

likely to pay attention to their fl aws and to feel ashamed of their bodies, and these

feelings motivate restrained eating (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Moradi, Dirks,

& Matteson, 2005; Smolak & Murnen, 2004).

Consider this study: Female participants alone in a dressing room with a full-

length mirror were asked to try on either a one-piece swimsuit or a sweater. While

wearing the new clothing, the women completed a checklist assessing body shame

(questions included: “I wish I were invisible,” “I wish I could cover my body.”).

They then took part in a “food taste test” (cookies). Women who tried on bathing

suits reported more shame about their bodies and subsequently ate less than their

sweater-clad counterparts. Male participants who wore bathing suits did not exhibit

this response (Fredrickson et al., 1998).

The objectifi cation process typically begins before adulthood. As girls enter

puberty, when female bodies are increasingly viewed in sexual terms, comments

on their bodies—such as catcalls or whistles when they walk down the street—

may increase their sense of bodies as objects or commodities (Bryant-Waugh, 1993;

Larkin, Rice, & Russell, 1999). Children learn these cultural messages early. Today,

even preschool children attribute more negative qualities to fat women than to fat

men (Turnbull, Heaslip, & McLeod, 2000).

Another explanation for the gender difference in prevalence rates of eating

disorders focuses on the politics of a cultural ideal of thinness for women. Some

researchers note that as women’s economic and political power has increased,

female models have become thinner and less curvaceous, creating a physical ideal of

womanhood that is harder—if not impossible—to meet. Women then spend signifi -

cant time, energy, and money trying to emulate this thinner ideal through exercise,

diet, medications, and even surgery, which in turn dissipates their economic and

political power (Barber, 1998; Bordo, 1993).

Although today males are much less likely to develop any type of eating

disorder than are women, this large gender discrepancy may not last. Data sug-

gest that male physical ideals are increasingly unrealistic: Male film stars and

Mr. Universe winners are increasingly muscular (Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia,

2000), paralleling the changes in women’s bodies in the media. Just as females

covet bodies similar to those promoted in the media, so do males (Ricciardelli

et al., 2006): Two-thirds of men want their bodies to be more similar to cultural

ideals of the male body (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a, 2001b; Ricciardelli &

10.6 • Objectifi cation and Eating Problems Objectifi cation theory helps to

explain the large gender difference in the prevalence of eating disorders. This theory proposes

that whereas boys are encouraged to view their bodies as instruments that can perform tasks

(agents), girls are encouraged to consider their bodies as objects and commodities to be

evaluated (objects)—which makes girls more vulnerable to developing an eating disorder.

Source: Adapted from Smolak & Murmen, 2004.

Figure 10.6

Female body = Object

Messages from:

Male body = Agent

Media

Peer teasing

Sexual harassment

Role models

Parents

Sexual violence

Internalization of

gaze of others–body

as object (girls)

Internalization of

ideal of thinness

Eating and body

image problems

Internalization of

ideal of strength

and action

Issues reflecting

power/aggression

Internalization of

role as

observers/evaluators

(boys)

Many female dolls have unattainable physical

proportions; this is increasingly also becoming

true of male dolls. As seen in this comparison of

a 1960 G. I. Joe action fi gure (left) with one from

2000 (right), male action fi gures have become

more muscular over the last 25 years (Baghurst

et al., 2006).

Betty Holmes, WIN the Rockies Betty Holmes, WIN the Rockies