Slender Women Fear Getting Fat
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 16:42
in Psychology & Sociology
Slender women worry about packing on extra weight, say Brigham Young University researchers who used MRI technology to observe what happened in the brain when people viewed images of complete strangers. If the stranger happened to be overweight and female, it surprisingly activated an area in women's brains that processes identity and self-reflection. Men did not show signs of any self-reflection in similar situations. "These women have no history of eating disorders and project an attitude that they don't care about body image," said Mark Allen, a BYU neuroscientist. "Yet under the surface is an anxiety about getting fat and the centrality of body image to self." The results appear in Personality and Individual Differences. read more