Abstract:
The study was aimed to explore the relationship between body image dissatisfaction, abnormal eating attitudes and social physique anxiety among university students. For this purpose Body Shape Questionnaire-34 (Cooper, 1986) to assess body image dissatisfaction, Disordered Eating Attitude Scale (Alvarenga, Pereira, Philippi,Estima & Croll 2010) to assess abnormal eating attitudes and Social Physique Anxiety Scale (Hart, Leary & Rejeski, 1989) to assess the social physique anxiety were used. Data was collected from Public, Semi- Government and private universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Sample comprised 249 university students including girls (n=136) and boys (n=113) with age range 18-35 years (M=22.79, STD=2.65). Psychometric properties of scales indicted moderate to good reliability for the study sample. Results showed significant positive relationship between body image dissatisfaction and abnormal eating attitudes (r=.60, p < .01). Results also showed significant relationship between body image dissatisfaction and body mass index (r=.17, p < .01). Moreover, significant relationship between social physique anxiety and body image dissatisfaction was also revealed (r=.11, p < .01). The results manifested that body image dissatisfaction predict abnormal eating attitudes among university students (R2=.37, p=< .001). It means that body shape concerns accounts to 33% of the variance in abnormal eating attitudes. Limitations and future recommendations are also discussed.
