The Risk of Eating Disorders in Adolescence and its Association with the Impact of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance

This paper studies whether there is an association between the risk of developing an eating disorder in adolescence and social attitudes concerning appearance, especially those circulated in the media. The sample was composed of 119 subjects, and the instruments used were EAT-26 and SATAQ. The results indicate the existence of statistically significant correlations between the risk of eating disorders in adolescence and all facets of social and cultural attitudes regarding appearance: importance, pressure, internalization/TV-magazines, internalizing/athlete, internalizing/comparison, awareness. When statistical analyses are performed differently in boys and girls, we see the existence of different intensities of these correlations. This result indicates that future studies could orientate to test the hypothesis of the existence of gender differences in this regard.