According to a study conducted by experts at the University of Minnesota, teenaged girls who often read magazine articles about dieting and weight loss appear to be three times as likely to engage in extreme dieting practices, such as vomiting, purging and using laxatives, both as teens and as adults.
In the study, led by Patricia van den Berg, PhD, researchers studied 2,516 Minnesota teens of both sexes for five years, starting when they were about 13-15 years old.
At the study’s start, the teens were surveyed about dieting, body image, and self-esteem. One of the questions posed to them was: “How often do you read magazine articles in which dieting or weight loss [is] discussed?”
Only 14% of the boys reported reading such articles frequently as compared to 44% of the girls.
The teens were also measured for height and weight.
Although the study doesn’t prove that the magazines caused teen girls to go on unhealthy diets or use extreme measures to control their weight, the follow-up survey reported that the girls who had most often read magazine articles about dieting and weight loss five years earlier were the most likely to report unhealthy or extreme dieting practices.
These girls were twice as likely to engage in unhealthy weight-control behaviors — including fasting, skipping meals, and smoking more cigarettes — as girls who never read such articles.
Extreme weight-control behaviors — including vomiting and using laxatives — were three times as common in the girls who reported frequently reading magazine articles about dieting and weight loss, compared with those who never read such articles.
No such patterns were seen in boys.
The researchers wrote:
Frequent reading of magazine articles about dieting/weight loss strongly predicted unhealthy weight-control behaviors in adolescent girls, but not boys, 5 years later.
Though study doesn’t say which magazines the teens read, or whether the weight loss articles promoted healthy or unhealthy dieting, the researchers opine that future studies should include other forms of media, including TV.
Even in the absence of a concrete link between magazine articles and prevalence of unhealthy dieting in teen girls, overlooking the implications of the study could prove to be fatal, stresses Dr. Van den Berg’s team.
Researchers advice parents to keep an eye on what they and their daughters are reading, and healthy behaviors such as regular exercise, healthy snacking, and good portion control must be emphasized.
Parents might also want to limit their teenaged daughters’ exposure to magazines that prize thinness, and teens should put media images in perspective concludes the study which appears in Pediatrics’ January edition.
Via: Livelywomen
