Effect of gender composition of school on body concerns in adolescent women.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to investigate the role of gender composition of school on body figure preferences, eating disorder symptomology, and role concerns.


METHODS
Questionnaires were completed by 261 Australian adolescent girls in two private single-sex and two private coeducational school environments.


RESULTS
There was no difference in nominated ideal figure or eating disorder scores between the schools. However, girls in the single-sex schools placed a greater emphasis on achievement than their counterparts at the coeducational schools. These role concerns had a differential impact on prediction of the ideal figure, whereby the importance placed on intelligence and professional success predicted the choice of a thinner ideal figure for the single-sex schools, but a larger ideal for the coeducational schools.


CONCLUSIONS
It was concluded that the motivation for thinness differs between single-sex and coeducational schools.
Tiggemann
M
M
School of Psychology, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001828:Body Image; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires