Self-determined motivation for eating behavior regulation and sociocultural influences among Romanian fashion models

Abstract

There is growing interest in understanding the ways in which legislation and policy may help to decrease the risk for body image and eating concerns among fashion models. Romania is one of the few countries in which occupation standards exist for professional models. The purposes of this study were three-fold: (1) to investigate the level of sociocultural risk factors among Romanian fashion models compared with a matched control group, (2) to compare the rates of eating disorders and healthy behaviors, and (3) to compare levels of self-determination for eating behavior regulation and its association with eating disorders symptoms and healthy eating behavior. Results indicated that: (1) fashion models reported lower body shape concerns compared with female controls likely driven by their lower body mass index (BMI), (2) eating disorder symptom rates were similar between the two groups, and (3) autonomous regulation of eating behavior was not significantly higher in fashion models. The findings from this study suggest that in Romania, where occupation standards exist, a large proportion of fashion models report very low BMIs. However, both fashion models and matched controls presented similarly high levels of body image and eating concerns.