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Becker et al. (2002) - Eating behaviours and attitudes following prolonged…
Becker et al. (2002) - Eating behaviours and attitudes following prolonged exposure to television among ethnic Fijian adolescent girls (LEARNING CONTEMPORARY STUDY)
Aim
To assess the impact of novel, prolonged exposure to Western media and television on disordered eating attitudes and behaviours among ethnic Fijian adolescent girls.
Sample
Two ethnic groups of Fijian secondary adolescent schoolgirls from Nadroga, Fiji in Years 5-7 (equivalent to Y11-13 in the UK), all around age 17 on average. There were 63 participants in 1995 and 65 in 1998.
Method
A prospective (looking ahead), multi-wave cross-sectional design was used. Semi-structured interviews and the EAT-26 questionnaire were used.
Procedure
Participants of both samples completed the EAT-26 questionnaire that included questions concerning bingeing, purging and eating behaviours. A score of above 20 was high and raised concerns. The girls' height and weight was measured and questions regarding their TVs at home. In both waves of the experiment, the participants also took part in semi-structured interviews, but the 1998 group were asked additional questions like 'Do you think you should ever eat less?. 30 girls from the 1998 sample with scores above 20 were interviewed in further detail regarding the aim. All the methods used had a translator involved to avoid any cultural misunderstandings.
Evaluation
✓ Reliability - This is a reliable study because it has standardised procedures and it was carefully documented. The established EAT-26 questionnaire is widely used in different cultures and shows consistency in measure. The questionnaire was used with both groups and a score over 20 meant the same thing in 1995 as it did in 1998. This is test-retest reliability. Furthermore, Becker's interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed so other researchers could provide inter-rater reliability for what the girls accounted for.
✗ Generalisability - This sample has low generalisability as it is gyno/androcentric and ethnocentric. Only adolescent girls are used in the study, which may be unrepresentative of the male populations' eating attitudes in relation to media exposure as well as the younger and older age categories. Furthermore, the sample was collected solely from Fiji which makes the finding difficult to be generalised to a global population as other cultures have different ideas of what is deemed attractive.
✓ Application - Fiji set aside very little funding for mental health and Becker suggested that they needed more health spending, as eating disorders and associated depression and suicide may become more common. Furthermore, more education globally may help the youth understand the unreal nature of slim or overly muscular models in the media. For instance, Italian fashion shows banned size zero models in 2006 due to the unrealistic fantasies they gave to the public.
✓/✗ Validity - There was high internal validity due to the use of a standardised procedure. The questionnaire responses were investigated further using semi-structured interviews with 30 girls meaning the understanding of the questionnaire could be checked for, reducing subjectivity.
This was a natural experiment where the IV wasn't being manipulated, so alongside TV and media exposure other factors such as peer relations may have impacted how the girls viewed themselves. References to the qualitative narrative data showed that ideas about body image may have been mediated through peers by the influence of community-wide aesthetic ideals and stimulation of consumerism. This reduces the validity of the study.
✗ Ethics - If the girls were identified as potentially suffering from an eating disorder, they may have found it distressing to talk about. Becker's team weren't specialists in eating disorders and weren't competent to diagnose anorexia. Competency is important in research because it would be unethical to give participants the impression they had a medical problem when they just had unhealthy dieting habits. Alarming and misleading participants would show a lack of social responsibility and a failure to mitigate risk.
Conclusions
Qualitative data suggested many of the girls didn't understand the unreal nature of media images (eg that these actors lost weight specifically for their roles and had personal trainers).
The survey data shows that there was an increase in TVs present in Fijian households over the 3 years and prolonged exposure to Western TV and media had a significant impact on eating attitudes and body image. EAT-26 scores had increased and self-induced vomiting to control body weight was prevalent after 3 years. This suggests the Fijian girls saw the celebrities on Western TV and media as role models as they tried to imitate their slim appearances, even though traditional Fijian culture emphasises a fuller and muscular figure as attractive. Becker believed TV has brought with it an interest in dieting and consequently symptoms of anorexia and bulimia that was not present before in Fiji, due to the attempt to imitate role models with unrealistic ideals.
Results
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Quantitative data - The part of the sample that used self-induced vomiting as a means of weight control increased from 0% in 1995 to 11.3% in 1998.
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Qualitative (narrative) data - "My parents tell me to eat more, but I dont want to gain weight"
Quantitative data - In 1995, 41.4% of Fijian households had TVs and by 1998 this had increased to 70.8%.