Perceived and individual ideals of gender in Swedish adolescents with and without an eating disorder.
Three open-ended questions based on Steiner-Adair (1986) were used to study gender concepts in relation to ideals in adolescent boys and girls and eating-disordered girls. The answers were coded according to themes emanating from the collected data and not predetermined. Dichotomous differences were found between the genders regarding perceived ideals of body size, but clinical and nonclinical girls perceived ideals of society and media similarly. Individual gender concepts differed substantially from the perceived ideals, and were most often focused on lifestyle and life conditions. However, the clinical girls were somewhat more likely to emphasize appearance and loving relationships.
Thurfjell
Barbro
B
Department of Neuroscience, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. barbro.thurfjell@bupinst.uu.se
Von Knorring
Anne-Liis
AL
Eliasson
Mona
M
Swenne
Ingemar
I
Engström
Ingemar
I
D000293:Adolescent; D001290:Attitude; D001828:Body Image; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden