Risk and protective factors for eating, weight, and body image problems

Whether you are male or female makes a difference when it comes to eating, weight and body image concerns.

• Body dissatisfaction is twice as high in girls than in boys (Neumark-Sztainer, 2006)
• Girls may have a more difficult time negotiating body changes during puberty than boys (Davison & McCabe, 2006).
• Girls:
  • Internalize the Thin Ideal promoted by our culture
  • Internalize their distress
  • Experience increased sensitivity to relational conflicts/disconnections
  • Experience greater social pressures to be thin
  • Are socialized to focus on appearance/weight
    (Keel & Gravener, 2008; Paxton & Heinicke, 2008; Tantillo, 2008)
• Eating disorders do not discriminate between males and females. Boys and men can and do develop eating disorders. The ratio of males to females diagnosed with eating disorders is about 1:10 (NEDA, 2009, www.NationalEatingDisorders.org).
• Ideal looks for males are increasingly impossible to attain. Action toys have grown more muscular with increasingly sharp muscle definition: rippled abdominals, big shoulders and chest (Pope, 1999).
• Women may try to compensate for being smart, strong, and successful by trying to be smaller, prettier, and more vulnerable. Carolyn Knapp (2003, Appetites) pointed out nobody cared about Past President Bill Clinton's McDonald's diet or pudginess but they were relentless about Hillary's appearance-hair, legs, wardrobe (p. 38).
• A recent study by Ruth Striegel Moore and her colleagues (2009) found:
  -men are more likely to report overeating
  -more women than men report loss of control over eating
  -women are more likely to report body image concerns than men
  -women are more likely to report binge eating, fasting and vomiting than men.
• A national survey of 11,467 high school students and 60,861 adults revealed the following gender differences (Serdula et al., 1993) (1)Among the adults, 38% of the women and 24% of the men were trying to lose weight and (2) Among high school students, 44% of the females and 15% of the males were attempting to lose weight.
• In general, men appear to be more comfortable with their weight and perceive less pressure to be thin than women.
• 77% of underweight men liked their appearance as opposed to 83% of underweight women. Males were more likely than females to claim that if they were fit and exercised regularly, they felt good about their bodies.
• Women were more concerned with aspects of their appearance, particularly weight (Cash, Winstead, & Janda, 1986).

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