Rank-Order of Body Shapes Reveals Internal Hierarchy of Body Image

© Person-Oriented Research..

How do individuals rank body shapes? Does this relate to the body part one is most dissatisfied with? Our study investigates whether one can generalize regarding how women represent the body. Three BMI-calibrated images from the Photographic Figure Rating Scale, representative of thin (BMI = 14.72), medium (BMI = 20.33), and large (BMI = 29.26) shapes, were divided into torso, legs and arms, and saved as individual images on a black background. Of 27 possible composite images, 8 were chosen based on a Torso (thin vs. large) × Leg (thin/large vs. medium) × Arm (thin vs. large) design. Our 44 female participants ordered these from thinnest to largest. This was first according to torso, then leg, and finally arm: 41 individuals agreed on the thinnest image (thin torso, thin legs, thin arms), followed by a second image (thin torso, thin legs, large arms, n = 26; or thin torso, medium legs, thin arms, n = 10). One participant differed markedly in her choice of the first image (large torso, medium legs, thin arms). Interestingly, she scored 10 on the EDI-2 scale of Bulimic Tendencies, revealing high risk for bulimia, suggesting that our task might be useful for studying eating disorders. Our juxtaposition of two analytic procedures-partial order scalogram analysis (POSAC) and cluster analysis-enables one to uncover such outliers in a data set. Importantly, the 2D POSAC space clearly reveals the hierarchical structure of the body image.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:6

Enthalten in:

Journal for person-oriented research - 6(2020), 1 vom: 10., Seite 28-38

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Naor-Ziv, Revital [VerfasserIn]
King, Rose [VerfasserIn]
Glicksohn, Joseph [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Body image
Cluster analysis
Eating disorders
Journal Article
POSAC
Photographic Figure Rating Scale

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 30.03.2024

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.17505/jpor.2020.22044

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM321292545