In a study of 540 women residing in Ede, the Netherlands, the relationships between dieting, satisfaction with figure, and sex-role orientation was researched.
Other variables in the study were actual body mass, level of education, anxiety, and negative self-concept. Degree of sex-role orientation was found to be significantly related to dieting and satisfaction with one's figure. However, the most striking finding was the high relationship between dieting and satisfaction with one's figure and actual body mass. In contrast to studies on college students, this suggests that, in the present study on community residents, concerns about figure and body weight are not likely to be preludes of epidemics of anorexia or bulimia nervosa.
Instead, these concerns are understandable, since they seem based on actual (overiweight for most of the women.
A striking fact about dieting and dissatisfaction with body weight is its high prevalence among (young) women. The strong association with sex immediately draws one's attention to the possible association of these variables with sex-role orientation. However, with respect to the direction this association may take, opposing hypotheses may be formulated. On the one hand, dissatisfaction with body weight and dieting may be particularly prevalent in women adhering to the female sex-role status (sex-typed) women. Sex-typed women were found to have lower body satisfaction (kmlicka, Cross & Tarnai, 1983) and to show more conformity in interpersonal situations (Bem, 1975; Brehoney & Geller, 1981) than did non-sex-typed women. This may extend to conformity to social pressure for female slenderness, since, according to a study of Playboy centerfolds and Miss America Pageant contestants, beauty has become increasingly equated with slimness (Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980). Traditionally, beauty has been the central asset of women in obtaining upward social mobility via marriage (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). Therefore, particularly