The valorization of thinness in our Western societies HAS lead many French women to comply. However, this ideal is hardly attainable, which can lead to a long and painful relationship of self-struggle. The objective of this study is to verify the mediating effect of experiential avoidance on the relationship between sensitivity to aesthetic ideals and body-dissatisfaction. We talk about body dissatisfaction when we notice a difference between the desired body and the perceived body. Experiential avoidance is defined as behavior that aims to modify the form, the frequency or the intensity of the inner experience, here linked to the body. Finally, sensitivity to the ideal of thinness refers to the extent to which an individual cognitively integrates socially defined ideals of attractiveness and engages in behaviors designed to reproduce them.
191 Western women, aged 30 years on average, responded to this study. The body mass index was around 24.2 kg / m2 ± 5.7 (min = 18.6, max = 53.0). Each participant had to answer four self-questionnaires: the Body Image Questionnaire, the Figure Rating Scale (FRS), the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire on Weight Difficulties, and the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire- 3. The procedure was done online.
Although we did not appreciate a link between the sensitivity to social pressure of thin and body-dissatisfaction, we were able to show that this link is partly mediated by experiential avoidance. Thus, women who are sensitive to sociocultural aesthetic values are the most dissatisfied with their bodies because of their greater difficulty in accepting their body as it is. In other words, the more women are sensitive to the cult of thinness, the more they tend to struggle against the body and the thoughts which are associated with them, and therefore they are more dissatisfied with their bodies. These results offer interesting therapeutic perspectives that we will discuss. Promoting self-acceptance among women who are most willing to conform to aesthetic ideals would seem to be one of those therapeutic possibilities.
