How Women’s Perceptions of Peer Weight Preferences Are Related to Drive for Thinness

Muscle Dysmorphia and the Perception of Men's Peer Muscularity Preferences

Research suggests that peer muscularity norms preferences are related to men's body image, but little information is known about how perceptions of specific peer group norms preferences are related to men's body image disturbances and specific health behaviors. This study investigated how men perceived the muscularity preferences of male, female, close, and distant peers and whether the perceptions of specific peer preferences were related to muscle dysmorphia and steroid use. Data on muscle dysmorphia and the perceptions of peer muscularity norms were collected from 117 male college students. Results indicated that men perceived distant and male peers as having the most exaggerated preferences for muscularity and that those perceptions were not an accurate reflection of their distant male peers' reported preferences. Results also indicated that perceptions of close female peer muscularity preferences were predictive of symptoms of muscle dysmorphia, but this relationship did not exist for other peer groups, suggesting that the perceptions of close female peer preferences may play a role in the development of muscle dysmorphia. No relationship was found between perceptions of peer muscularity preferences and steroid use.

One Size Doesn't Fit All: New Continua of Figure Drawings and Their Relation to Ideal Body Image

OBJECTIVE

This study introduces a new figure drawing measure, the Presentation of Images on a Continuum Scale (PICS), which includes continua of bodies from thin to obese and thin to muscular for both men and women.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants were undergraduate students from a private, Catholic university in Connecticut. The data were collected in the spring of 2010.

METHODS

Three hundred forty-eight undergraduates completed an online survey that assessed current versus ideal body image as well as attractiveness of body types.

RESULTS

Results showed that current versus ideal body selection discrepancies on the PICS among women (but not among men) were related to several negative outcomes involving increased body concerns, less body satisfaction, and lower self-esteem, as well as increased drive for muscularity among men. Study implications are described from a social norming perspective.