PEDIATRICS Vol. 83 No. 3 March 1989, pp. 393-398
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Fear of Obesity Among Adolescent Girls

Nancy Moses MNS, RD1, Mansour-Max Banilivy PhD1, and Fima Lifshitz MD1

1 The Department of Pediatrics and Department of Child Psychiatry, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York, and the Departments of Pediatrics and of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York

The perceptions concerning weight, dieting practices, and nutrition of 326 adolescent girls attending an upper middle-class parochial high school were studied in relation to their body weight. Underweight or overweight students were those with greater than 10% body weight differential for height. The high school students reported an exaggerated concern with obesity regardless of their body weight or nutrition knowledge. Underweight, normal weight, and overweight girls were dieting to lose weight and reported frequent self-weighing practices. As many as 51% (n = 60) of the underweight adolescents described themselves as extremely fearful of being overweight and 36% (n = 43) were preoccupied with body fat. A distorted perception of ideal body weight was documented, particularly among the underweight students; the greater the underestimation of perceived ideal body weight, the greater the actual deficit in ideal body weight for height of the students (r = .73; P < .001). Normal weight and overweight girls had better concordance between their actual and perceived ideal body weight for height. The frequency of bingeing and vomiting behaviors was similar among the three weight categories. The data suggest that fear of obesity and inappropriate eating behaviors are pervasive among adolescent girls regardless of body weight or nutrition knowledge.

Key Words: eating disorder • adolescent • body weight • nutrition knowledge • malnutrition

Submitted on November 3, 1987
Accepted on March 29, 1988




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