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Socioculturel pressure on women to be thin has been blamed for the development of eating disorders. Despite decades of research, however, it is still not clear why a few women exposed to these pressures develop eating disorders, but most women in the society do not. The media are often blamed for spreading the message that women must be thin, and for making women feel badly about themselves. This view seems overly simplistic, however, ignoring the fact that women voluntarily expose themselves to thin media images, that such exposure can actually be pleasurable, and that most women exposed to this message do not develop eating disorders. The sociocultural model of eating disorders needs further study and refinement, and the studies in this special issue represent steps in that process.
Why do eating disorders occur so much more often in women than in men? Sociocultural factors have recently become the prime suspect (e.g., Polivy & Herman, 2002). We know that eating disorders are most likely to occur in societies where food is abundantly available, but where the idealized body shape for women is slender and tubular rather than rounded or curvaceous. The idealization of thinness (and a corresponding derogation of fatness) has been much more intense for females than for males over the last few decades (Striegel-Moore, 1997). Although living in a society where food is abundant and female thinness is idealized does not inevitably produce an eating disorder-most of the women in such a society after all, will not become eating disordered-many women will internalize the message and strive to be thin. A vulnerable few will go further and develop real eating pathololgy (Polivy & Herman, 2002).
Despite decades of research into the sociocultural model of eating disorders, we still do not understand how such sociocultural influences produce disordered eating in any given individual (or why a similar person in the same cultural milieu does not become disordered). Clearly, though, one source of vulnerability lies in a woman's body image. To the extent that a woman's self-image is challenged or threatened by an unattainable ideal of an impossibly thin female physique, she may well become susceptible to disruption of her self-regard, and may be more likely to develop an eating disorder. In short, the sociocultural...