| Abstrakt: |
Why do teenage girls diet? This is a far more complex question than it initially seems. Even the most obvious answer, to lose weight, is not always correct. Adolescent dieting is not solely about managing weight; it is a gendered social behavior that is associated with social status, peer esteem, and ego gratification among young women. In this paper, I examine dieting among adolescent girls and young adults. I present a theoretical framework for understanding dieting and status that takes in to account context-specific patterns. From this framework, I present a series of models predicting dieting as an outcome related to social roles, status, and female physical development during adolescence. I find that dieting is less common among adolescent girls who have alternative pathways to status, but this relationship does not persist in to adulthood once a woman leaves high school or college. I also find that the peer-centered environment of college prolongs adolescent dieting patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
