Body Rocks - Las Vegas

Evaluation of eating disorder prevention programs for adolescent girls and boys. One current project involves implementing and testing a prevention program for racially and ethnically diverse, predominantly low income high school students (Valley High School). Fingeret, M. C., Warren, C. S., Cepeda-Benito, A., & Gleaves, D. H. (2006). Eating Disorder Prevention

Research: A *Meta-Analysis. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 14, 191-213.

Meta-analysis - In most studies, researchers collect data from a large group of individuals and then examine that data to see if their hypotheses are supported. Some researchers look to see if one group improves significantly more than another group. Other researchers look to see whether one variable is related to another such that, as one increases the other also increases or vice versa. In a meta-analysis, researchers look at a group of studies rather than a group of individuals to see if a particular relationship is found consistently by different researchers and, if so, how substantial that relationship might be.

“Real women have curves, but the images on TV, magazines, and the Internet portray anything
but that. In a study examining the influence of mainstream media images on Latino American
high school students, a desire to look like media icons (most of which are White) predicted
increased dissatisfaction with their weight and looks in both boys and girls. The study, conducted at Valley High School, found that frequent exposure to Western media's images of beauty
(images of women who are thin, fit and images that sometimes surgically enhanced or
airbrushed and boys with are athletic and muscular) predicts Latina girls - more often than Latino American boys - to aspire to become thin through unhealthy means. While both Latin girls and boys reported wanting to be skinny or as athletically built as the men and women they see on TV, more Latino girls said they feel an increased pressure to fit in with Western norms. Warren says, research into how teens perceive media images of beauty is one way to predict whether teens will develop poor eating habits or eating disorders such as anorexia, binge eating or bulimia. “

Check out the posters from students during this study.