PERCEPTION OF BODY SHAPES BY ANOREXICS AND MATURE AND TEENAGE FEMALES

Three groups of females-Anorexic (mean age 28), Teenage (mean age 16), and Mature adults (mean age 27)--were shown four male and four female body drawings ranging from very thin to very fat and asked to rate th em on four categories (attractive, healthy confident, and popular) usi ng a 10-point bipolar scale. A predicted and consistent pattern occurr ed, namely that the anorexics rated fatter women less attractive. less healthy less confident and less popular than teenagers and mature fem ales, while at the same time rating male body shapes more attractive t han did the two other female groups. Both anorexic and teenage groups rated the thinner women as more attractive, healthy confident, and pop ular than the mature females. Both mature and teenage females rated th e fat female body shape more positively than did the anorexics. The im plications of these findings are discussed. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons , Inc.