PhD Scientific Days 2025

Mental Health Sciences III.

Risk Factors for the Development of Eating Disorders Among Fashion Models

Name of the presenter

Bogár Nikolett

Institute/workplace of the presenter

Semmelweis University, Institute of Behavioral Sciences

Authors

Nikolett Bogár¹, Pál Kővágó², Szilvia Dukay-Szabó³, Dávid Simon³

1: Semmelweis University, Institute of Behavioral Sciences
2: Pázmány Péter Catholic University
3: ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

Text of the abstract

Introduction: The escalating demand for models to uphold a slim physique and extremely small measurements could play a pivotal role in contributing to the onset of eating disorders, in their clinical or subclinical forms.
Aims: The present study compared the frequency of AN, BN, ON among female top fashion models to an age-adjusted control group. It further explored maladaptive eating behaviors, attitudes towards appearance, body image, and the occurrence of sexual abuse through self-narrated reports and quantitative measuring tools. To our best knowledge, this study involved a larger number of multicultural female models than any previous qualitative research and is the first ever study to use content analysis for the assessment of ED-like symptoms and body image disturbances in this population.
Method: International female fashion models (n= 179, mean age: 25.9 SD= 4.40 years) and age adjusted control group (n=261, mean age: 25.0 SD= 4.97 years) were selected by snowball sampling. Participants filled in an online survey containing anthropometric questions, the EBSS, EDI, SCOFF, BAT, SATAQ-3 and the 18-item Eating Habits Questionnaire. In the qualitative arm, 87 models’ data was analyzed. Snowball sampling was used. Semi-structured interviews targeted models’ careers, attitudes towards the fashion industry, their body image, eating, exercising and dieting habits, etc. Thematic content analysis was performed on the transcripts of the interviews.
Results: The frequency of subclinical AN is significantly higher in fashion models than in non-models (13.4% vs. 3.0%). No significant differences were found in EDs of clinical severity in the groups. Models showed significantly higher presence of orthorexic tendencies (35.4% vs 22.4%).
Body image disorder symptoms were expressed by 63.10% of the models, and 36.90% have referred to eating disorders. Statements about eating included 96.43% neutral and 45.24% negative claims. Monotrophic eating occurred in 27.38% of the answers, and 40.48% claimed to have used extreme calorie restriction. 83.33% of the participants received criticizing comments on their bodies and such individuals talk negatively significantly more often about eating.
Conclusion: The findings confirm that models are at a higher risk for the development of partial EDs which might be due to the challenging professional environment.
Funding: None