Psychological Gender Influence on Eating Behavior Characteristics in Girls

The article is devoted to the influence of psychological gender (masculine, androgynous, feminine) on eating behavior characteristics in girls. The aim was to study the relationship of eating behavior with gender. We hypothesize that marked femininity and masculinity are risk factors for eating disorders in girls, particularly, masculinity leads to bulimic type, while femininity – to the type of fad diet. We used Bem Sex Role Inventory (S. Bem), Eating Attitudes Test (D. Garner) and Risk Factors of Eating Disorders (T.A. Meshkova) , participants were forty girls aged 17 to 20 years. The results showed that girls with masculine gender, and those with a strong femininity are at risk for eating disorders more than girls with masculinity-femininity score average for this sample. We show that the gender characteristics influence the types of eating behavior: girls whose gender is close to masculine, tend to bulimic eating type, and the girls with a strong femininity to a fad diet. Also, the results obtained indicate that the masculine girls are more likely to use physical exercise to lose weight, that makes them different from the feminine ones, not involved in sports.

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