Abstract
Objective: The current study aimed to compare endorsement of the muscular- and thin-ideals alone, as well as simultaneous endorsement of both as representative of the fit-ideal and examine potential negative correlates of each type of ideal internalization. Participants: Participants were 300 female undergraduate students. Methods: Participants completed measures of internalization of the thin- and muscular-ideals, body dissatisfaction, body checking, and body avoidance. Results: Analyses revealed that approximately 24.9% of participants endorsed scores in the upper quartile on thin-ideal internalization, and 27.4% of participants fell in the upper quartile of muscular-ideal internalization, while 10.3% endorsed high internalization of both ideals. Analyses revealed that individuals endorsing only the thin-ideal reported significantly higher levels of body dissatisfaction and body avoidance than those endorsing the fit-ideal. Conclusions: Overall, findings suggested that thin- and muscular-ideal internalization present different patterns of association depending on whether an individual endorses one or both of these body ideals.
Disclosure statement
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Human rights
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was reviewed by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s IRB.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflict of interest disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Hawai′i at Mānoa.
Funding
No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.
Data availability statement
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available upon request to the authors, contingent upon IRB approval for sharing.