Faculty Articles

Correlates of the Drive for Thinness in Young Female Adolescents

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1987

Publication Title

Journal of Clinical Child Psychology

Volume

16

Issue/Number

4

First Page

313

ISSN

0047-228X

Last Page

319

Abstract/Excerpt

The core feature of anorexia nervosa is considered to be a drive for thinness. In order to try to identify personal and familial correlates of this drive, I studied 68 nonclinic girls ranging in age from 11 to 14 years. The personal attributes examined included body dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, interoceptive awareness, perfectionism, and depression. The familial factors studied were conflict and independence. The results implicated two of the personal cognitive components as correlates of the drive for thinness, namely, body dissatisfaction and interoceptive awareness. These two variables accounted for 56% of the variance in a stepwise multiple-regression equation.

DOI

10.1207/s15374424jccp1604_4

Peer Reviewed

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