BODY ATTITUDE AND BODY EXPERIENCE IN GREEK AND FLEMISH FEMALES WITH AND WITHOUT EATING DISORDERS

Maria Efstratopoulou, Michel Probst, Elfi Fotiou, Johan Simons

Abstract


Assessment of young females with anorexia nervosa was carried out at the time of hospitalization. Findings were compared to those from two typical weight control groups from Belgium and Greece. The total sample consisted of three groups: a) a clinical sample of 75 Belgian females with anorexia nervosa (mean age=19.01, sd=2.20), b) a typical Greek sample of 137 females (mean age=18.68, sd=1.92) and c) a control sample of 130 typical Flemish females (mean age=18.61, sd=1.34). The Body Attitude Test (BAT; Probst, et al., 1995) for female patients with eating disorders (ED) was used to measure the subjective body experience and attitudes toward body. The Body Satisfaction Scale, Silhouette Chart and the Semantic Differential were also used. One-way analysis of variance, revealed group differences on body attitudes. As it was initially hypothesised, the female patients indicated more negative attitudes and a poorer self-evaluation of their body in comparison to the non clinical groups. However, analysis of the data from Silhouette Chart and the Semantic Differential revealed that in some items there were no significant differences on body experience and satisfaction between the typical Greek female group and the clinical Belgian female group, which was an interesting and unexpected finding. The authors examined the outcomes from a cross-cultural viewpoint. Research into the cultural factors that could contribute to body dissatisfaction could help us understand the underline mechanisms and create effective preventive interventions for young females. 

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter

DOI

Keywords


body attitude, body dissatisfaction, body experience, anorexia nervosa, eating disorders

References


American Psychiatric Association, (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn. American Psychiatric Publishing, Arlington.

Attia, E., Becker, A.E., Bryant-Waugh, R., Hoek, H.W., Kreipe, R.E., Marcus, M.D., et al., (2013). Feeding and eating disorders in DSM-5. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170, 1237-1239.

Bell, C., Kirkpatrick, S. W., & Rinn, R. C. (1986). Body image of anorexic, obese and normal females. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 431–439.

Ben-Tovim, D. I., & Walker M. K., (1991). The development of the Ben-Tovim Walker body attitudes questionnaire (BAQ), a new measure of women’s attitudes towards their own bodies. Psychology Medicine, 21, 775–784.

Berscheid E., Walster E., & Bohrnstedt G. (1973). The happy American body: A survey report. Psychology Today, 7, 119–131

Brooks-Gunn, Burrow, C., & Warren, M. P. (1988). Attitudes toward eating and body weight in different groups of female adolescent athletes. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 7, 749-757.

Brown J. A., Cross H. J., & Nelson J. M. (1990). Sex role identity and sex-role ideology in college women with bulimic behavior. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 9, 571-575.

Cash, T., & Brown, T. (1987). Body image in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: A review of the literature. Behavior modification, 11, 487–521.

Conley, A., & Boardman, J. D. (2007). Weight overestimation as an indicator of disordered eating behaviours among young women in the United States. International Journal of Eating Disorders 40(5), 441–445.

Dolan, B. (1991). Cross-cultural aspects of anorexia nervosa and bulimia: A review. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 10, 67-79.

Fairburn, C.G., & Bohn, K., (2005). Eating disorder NOS (EDNOS): an example of the troublesome “not otherwise specified” (NOS) category in DSM-IV. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43, 691-701.

Gardner, R. M., & Brown, D. L. (2014). Body size estimation in anorexia nervosa: a brief review of findings from 2003 through 2013. Psychiatry Research, 219(3), 407–410.

Gardner, R. M., & Brown, D. L., (2010). Body image assessment: a review of figural drawing scales. Personality and Individual Differences 48:107–111

Gardner, R. M. (1996). Methodological issues in assessment of the perceptual component of body image disturbance. British Journal of Psychology, 87(2):327–337

Gardner, R. M., Jappe, L. M., & Gardner, L. (2009). Development and validation of a new figural drawing scale for body-image assessment: The BIAS-BD. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(1), 114-122.

Grogan, S. (2008). Culture and body image. In S. Grogan (Ed.), Body image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children (pp. 9-40). Hove, UK: Routledge.

Hoek, H. W. (2006). Incidence, prevalence and mortality of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 19, 389–394.

Jacobi, C., Hayward, C., de Zwaan, M., Kraemer, H. C., & Agras, W. S. (2004). Coming to terms with risk factors for eating disorders: Application of risk terminology and suggestions for a general taxonomy. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 19–65

Kater, K. J., Rohwer, J., & Levine, M. P. (2000). An elementary school project for developing healthy body image and reducing risk factors for unhealthy and disordered eating. Eating Disorders, 8, 3–16.

Kellam, D. J., & Langevin, D. J. (2003). A framework for understanding “evidence” in prevention research and programs. Prevention Science, 4, 137–154.

Keel, P. K., & Klump, K. L. (2003). Are eating disorders culture-bound syndromes? Implications for conceptualizing their etiology. Psychological Bulletin 129, 747–769.

Lee, S., & Hsu, L. K. G. (1993). Fat phobic and non-fat phobic anorexia nervosa: A comparative study of 70 Chinese patients in Hong Kong. Psychological Medicine, 23, 999-1017.

Levine, M. P., & Smolak, L. (2006). The prevention of eating problems and eating disorders: Theory, research, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Minuchin. S., Baker. S., & Roman, B.L. (1978). “Psychosomatic Families.” Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2005). Addressing obesity and other weight-related problems in youth. Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 159, 290–291.

Powell, A. D., & Kahn, A.S. (1995). Racial differences in women’s desires to be thin. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 17, 191-195.

Pike, K. M., Hoek, H. W., & Dunne, P. E. (2014). Cultural trends and eating disorders. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 27, 436–442.

Probst, M., Vandereycken, W., Van Coppenolle, H., & Vanderlinden, J. (1995). The Body Attitude Test for patients with an eating disorder: Psychometric characteristics of a new questionnaire. Eating Disorders, 3, 133–145

Schneider, N., Frieler, K., Pfeiffer, E., Lehmkuhl, U., & Salbach-Andrae, H. (2009). Comparison of body size estimation in adolescents with different types of eating disorders. European Eating Disorder Review,17(6),468–475.

Slade, P., Dewey, M., Newton, T., Brodie, D., & Kiemle, G. (1990). Development and preliminary validation of the Body Satisfaction Scale (BSS). Psychological Health, 4, 213–220.

Smink, F. R., van Hoeken, D., & Hoek, H.W. (2013). Epidemiology, course, and outcome of eating disorders. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 26, 543–548.

Smink, F.R., van Hoeken, D., Oldehinkel, A.J., & Hoek, H. W (2014). Prevalence and severity of DSM-5 eating disorders in a community cohort of adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders 47, 610–619.

Smolak, L., & Murnen, S. K. (2004). A feminist approach to eating disorders. In J. K. Thompson (Ed.), Handbook of Eating Disorders and Obesity (pp. 590–605). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Thompson, K. E., (2001). Body image, eating disorders, and obesity in youth: assessment, prevention, and treatment. American Psychological Association.

Tiggemann, M., & Slater, A. (2013). Net Girls: The Internet, Facebook, and body image concern in adolescent girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 46, 630–633

Wadden, T.A., Brown, G., Foster, G. D., & Linowitz, J. R. (1991). Salience of weight related worries in adolescent males and females. International Journal of Eating Disorders,10, 407-414.

Walsh, B. T., (2013). The enigmatic persistence of anorexia nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry 170, 477–484.

Wiseman, C.V., Gray, J. J., Mossiman, J. E., & Ahrens, A. H. (1992). Cultural expectations of thinness in women: An update. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 11,85-89.

Zimmerman, M., Francione-Witt, C., Chelminski, I., Young, D., & Tortolani, C., (2008). Problems applying the DSM-IV eating disorders diagnostic criteria in a general psychiatric outpatient practice. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 69 (3), 381-384




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v0i0.238

Copyright (c) 2018 Maria Efstratopoulou, Michel Probst, Elfi Fotiou, Johan Simons

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2016 - 2023. European Journal Of Social Sciences Studies (ISSN 2501-8590) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.