On the Factors of the Drive for Thinness and Abnormal Eating Behavior in Youth Women : From Comparative Analysis of a School Child to a University Student

The purpose of this study was to develop factors of the "drive for thinness" and "abnormal eating behavior" in japanese young girls from school children to college students. A total of three school students (elementary school, junior high school, high school) and university students consisting of 960 females were selected in this study (a response rate of 97.4%) . The main result of our survey clearly shows that, on the primary school girls and junior high school girls, the factors of "body satisfaction" and "disagreement of ideal body shape" significantly affected their "drive for thinness." A further point is that the "drive for thinness" has also affected their "abnormal eating behavior" significantly. What is more, on the high school girls, in addition to the same tendency as female primary school students and junior high school girls, "self-esteem" and "BMI" also affected their "drive for thinness." On the female university students, only a factor of "disagreement of ideal body shape" has a significant influence on their "drive for thinness" while "drive for thinness" and "disagreement of ideal body shape" affected "abnormal eating behavior" significantly. However, there is not significant relationship between "drive for thinness" and the factor of "self-esteem". It follows from these findings that the "drive for thinness" was affected by the two factors of "body satisfaction" and "disagreement of ideal body shape" on all four groups of Japanese young girls. Accordingly, we need to take the educational approach based on the two factors. On the other hand. the factor of "self-esteem" has no relevance to the "drive for thinness" on elementary school girls, junior high school girls and college girls but this factor cannot be overlooked since we found a strong correlation between "self-esteem" and "body satisfaction." Therefore, we believe that in the future the education which fosters "self-esteem" is essential