Starving for a drink: Sexual objectification is associated with food-restricted alcohol consumption among college women, but not among men

ABSTRACT

Interpersonal sexual objectification, or being treated as an object by others, is linked to poorer body image and, in turn, engagement in weight management behaviors that promote conformity to unrealistic appearance standards while simultaneously undermining health. Although these associations emerge consistently among women, the evidence has been less clear among men. The present study introduced a novel weight control behavior, food-restricted alcohol consumption (i.e., limiting food intake prior to alcohol consumption), and examined whether sexual objectification was associated with this phenomenon and whether this association differed among women and men. During the fall of 2012 and the spring of 2013, 410 undergraduates reported how often they felt objectified by others and restricted what they ate before drinking alcohol in the past month. Controlling for past drinking, sexual objectification was significantly and positively associated with food-restricted alcohol consumption for women; however, sexual objectification was unrelated to food-restricted alcohol consumption for men. The results suggest that sexual objectification might operate differently across the sexes and particularly be related to this specific health-risk behavior among women.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol
• drunkorexia
• food-restricted alcohol consumption
• gender differences
• psychosocial; weight

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Joanna Falk for her help with data collection and Alexandra Weis for providing feedback on a draft of this article.

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.