Scholarly+articles

Stice, Eric and J. Kevin Thompson. "Thin Ideal Internalization: Mounting Evidence for a New Risk Factor for Body Image Disturbance and Eating Pathology." //Current Directions in Psychological Science// 10.5 (Oct. 2001): 181-183. //JSTOR//. Web. 1 May 2011. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182734 >.

J. Kevin Thompson is a Psychology Professor and the University of South Florida who has published many studies on eating disorders and body image. Eric Stice is a Ph.D research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. His work focuses on adolescent health and development and has been featured in several peer-reviewed psychology journals. The source is report on the findings of the two researchers regarding the internalization of the thin cultural ideal for women as a new risk factor for eating disorders. The intended audience is fellow clinical psychology scholars; the text appears in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of clinical psychology.

The authors argue that, in addition to other risk factors, the degree of internalization of the thin cultural ideal is another major risk factor for eating disorders. Thompson and Stice cover their research as it relates to this argument. They break this down into an abstract, background of research, and future directions. The abstract summarizes the impacts of eating disorders, thin ideal – internalization, and its cultural roots. The background of their research included having adolescent and adult females evaluate Western ideals of attractiveness, research on college females that showed a correlation between thin-ideal internalization and eating disorders, establishing the internalization of this ideal serves as a good predictor of bulimia among asymptomatic girls, and that being critical of media that supports the ideal and arguing against the ideal can decrease the degree of internalization and bulimic behaviors. The future directions section includes a brief summary of their conclusions, and what further research must be done to fully understand the role of thin-deal internalization.

The evidence provided for this argument is the study that follows the abstract. It describes the experiments, the findings, and the conclusion that thin-ideal internalization is yet another major risk factor in eating disorders. They also discuss their findings that women with high degrees of internalization could lessen their risk by arguing against the ideal and through awareness training regarding media images. The study focuses on the impact of cultural and media ideals on female’s body image, making the findings of this study very helpful.

The work is very clear, and is definitely well-researched, as it is the author’s research study. The topic- the author’s research findings as they relate to the thin-ideal internalization risk factor for eating disorders- is adequately addressed as they go into detail on their experiments, findings, and the implications of these findings. The author’s seem very objective in their approach, as required by this type of source. They report all findings and admit more research still must be done to find out just how much thin-ideal internalization impacts eating disorder risk.  This source showed me the more specific impacts of the “ideal” female figure on individual females, especially when they begin to internalize this ideal. Internalization of the thin ideal increases the risk of eating disorders greatly. The results of this study provide great evidence to support my thesis, as the study directly addresses the cultural ideal put forth by the media and how it impacts young females. This source helped to develop my argument by providing a specific scientific study that supports it.