Barbara Peterson M.A. Graduate Student’s research while affiliated with University of Toronto and other places

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Publications (2)


Some correlates of the thin standard of bodily attractiveness in women
  • Article

July 1986

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728 Reads

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139 Citations

International Journal of Eating Disorders

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Barbara Peterson M.A. Graduate Student

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Historical analyses were used to test the hypothesis that the recent outbreak of eating disorders among women may be due, in part, to the slim standard of bodily attractiveness for women that has become fashionable. Historical changes in the standard were estimated by means of a measurement of the curvaceousnes of women depicted in photographs appearing in Vogue and Ladies Home Journal since 1901. When variation in the standard is measured across time, adherence to a slim standard is associated with low body weight among college women, with preoccupation with obesity in popular magazines and with various symptoms of eating disorders reported by experts cited in the mass media.


Possible causes of the thin standard of bodily attractiveness for women

July 1986

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142 Reads

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112 Citations

International Journal of Eating Disorders

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Barbara Peterson M.A. Graduate Student

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[...]

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Deborah A. Fantini Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow

Based upon studies that have demonstrated that curvaceous women are rated as less competent and less intelligent than noncurvaceous women, it was hypothesized that during periods when the intelligence and professional competence of women are stressed, the standard of bodily attractiveness for women becomes noncurvaceous, and that women who are concerned about how intelligent they appear to be to others will adhere to a slim standard of bodily attractiveness for themselves. Using measures of variation in the standard of bodily attractiveness across time and across individuals, it was found that over the course of the twentieth century, when the proportion of American women working as professionals or graduating from college has increased, the standard of bodily attractiveness for women has become less curvaceous and that college women who report that their fathers did not believe them to be very intelligent tend to want to be slim.

Citations (2)


... Nouri, M et al.'s study shows that American women are the same as those in the previous study. [7][8][9][10] College students are generally young, more concerned about their image than other groups, and have more contact with media information. Today, surrounded by media information, various kinds of propaganda are full of people's thoughts, especially the young age of college students. ...

Reference:

The Mediating Role of Intuitive Eating on the Association Between Self-control and Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Among Chinese College Students: a Cross-sectional Study
Some correlates of the thin standard of bodily attractiveness in women
  • Citing Article
  • July 1986

International Journal of Eating Disorders

... More recently, research has documented that women may also desire muscularity (Bozsik et al., 2018) suggesting that (presumably cisgender) women may idealize a combination of muscularity and thinness, embodying a fitness or androgynous body ideal (Couture, 2016;Uhlmann et al., 2020). The body image literature has emphasized gendered notions of thinness and muscularity for women and men, respectively (Murnen & Karazsia, 2017;Silverstein et al., 1986) that are rooted in white European ideals (Awad et al., 2015). This gendered conceptualization, then, reflects white, binary, and cisnormative notions of the body and fails to reflect the complexity of gender/sex. ...

Possible causes of the thin standard of bodily attractiveness for women
  • Citing Article
  • July 1986

International Journal of Eating Disorders