Authors: Toro, J.; Castro, J.; Gila, A.; Pombo, C.

Source: European Eating Disorders Review, Volume 13, Number 5, September 2005 , pp. 351-359(9)

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract:

Objective

To produce a questionnaire for the assessment of sociocultural influences on the male body shape model; to study the role of sociocultural influences in the development of anorexia nervosa in adolescent males; to compare the results obtained with those from a similar study conducted in adolescent females.

Method

The CIMEC (Questionnaire on Influences on Body Shape Model), validated in girls, was adapted to create the CIMEC-V, a version for the male population. The CIMEC-V was administered to 34 adolescent males with anorexia nervosa attending consecutively at an eating disorders unit and the EAT-26 to 26 of them. Both questionnaires were administered to 240 male subjects from the general population. Anthropometric measurements were also recorded for all subjects.

Results

The CIMEC-V correlated significantly with the EAT-26 (p<0.001), but not with BMI. The 17 items that yielded significant differences between patients and controls were used to produce the CIMEC-V-17. The factor analysis identified four factors; Influence of advertising and information accounted for most of the variance. The questionnaire's internal consistency was 0.80–0.88. There were major differences in the results obtained by these male populations and the corresponding female populations.

Discussion

CIMEC-V and CIMEC-V-17 appear to be useful for the study of sociocultural influences on the body shape model in normal adolescent males and in those with eating disorders. In anorexic boys, the influence of conversations, magazine articles and advertisements may be greater than in anorexic girls. Anorexic boys present a contradiction: a desire for thinness on the one hand and for a muscular build on the other. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Keywords: eating disorders; anorexia nervosa; body image; assessment; cultural risk

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/erv.650

Affiliations: 1: Service of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, Spain

Publication date: 2005-09-01

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