Why do young women diet? The roles of body fat, body perception, and body ideal.
BACKGROUND
To assess the relative roles of body fat, body perception, and body ideals as motivations for dieting in college women.


METHODS
We compared 45 college women who reported having dieted with 32 who had not, using a novel computerized test of body image called the somatomorphic matrix.


RESULTS
As expected, the difference in body fat between subjects' "perceived body" and "ideal body" was significantly greater in dieters than in nondieters (p < .001). Remarkably, however, this difference remained highly significant even after adjusting for the subjects' actual measured body fat (p = .002). Further analysis revealed that this difference persisted, not because dieters had unrealistic ideals of thinness, but because they had distorted perceptions of their fatness.


CONCLUSIONS
Distorted body image perception, a potentially treatable condition, may play an unexpectedly large role in motivating young women to diet.
Gruber
A J
AJ
Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA 02478, USA. agruber@mclean.org
Pope
H G
HG
Lalonde
J K
JK
Hudson
J I
JI
D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001823:Body Composition; D001828:Body Image; D004038:Diet, Reducing / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D004954:Esthetics / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D012649:Self Concept; D013008:Somatotypes / Q000523:psychology; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014495:Universities