title: Short-term effects of media exposure to the thin ideal in female inpatients with an eating disorder compared to female inpatients with a mood or anxiety disorder or women with no psychiatric disorder.
abstract: Previous research demonstrated that the exposure to media portrayals of the thin body ideal negatively affects body satisfaction and mood of healthy women and thus represents a sociocultural risk factor for the development of eating disorders. However, at present, it is not known whether negative effects of the thin ideal are pronounced in eating-disordered patients.
  
  
  
  Female inpatients with a current diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (N = 36), bulimia nervosa (N = 32), or mood or anxiety disorder (N = 31), and women with no current psychiatric diagnosis were randomly assigned to exposure to magazine pictures depicting the thin female body ideal or landscape scenes in two experimental phases (leafing through a magazine followed by instructed imagination of a picture from the magazine). The groups were compared on measures of body satisfaction and mood that were collected before and after the two phases.
  
  
  
  Leafing through a fashion magazine was not associated with negative effects on body satisfaction or mood in all groups. Imagining the thin ideal resulted in a decrease in body satisfaction and a decrease in positive mood. We found no diagnosis-specific effects indicating no stronger negative impact of the thin ideal on eating-disorder patients.
  
  
  
  Given the lacking differences between eating-disordered patients and controls, these findings underline the importance of future research to enhance our understanding of what happens when patients are exposed to external or internal stimuli of media images of the thin ideal. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:708-715).
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Loeber
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, LWL-University Hospital Bochum, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Ramona
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Burgmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University Clinic Essen, University Duisburg-Essen, Hufelandstrasse 55, Essen, 45138, Germany.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wyssen
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leins
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, LWL-University Hospital Bochum, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.|Department of Neurology, University Clinic Essen, University Duisburg-Essen, Hufelandstrasse 55, Essen, 45138, Germany.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rustemeier
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Munsch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, LWL-University Hospital Bochum, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Herpertz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D052018:Bulimia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008402:Mass Media; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: body image; body satisfaction; eating disorders; internalization of thin ideal; media exposure