Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Body Image and Social Anxiety: Integration, Comparison, and Extension of Bioecological Models
    (2012) Klingaman, Elizabeth Ann; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Women entering their first year of college are at risk of developing both pathological body image and social anxiety. The bioecological framework of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1977) was used to guide the selection and synthesis of three relevant models linking the following outcomes to various predictors relevant to first-year-to-college women: social physique anxiety as a subcomponent of body image concerns, and fear of negative evaluation as a subcomponent of social anxiety. While several differences were found between Asian, Black, and White racial groups, the new bioecological model fit well across all racial groups, explaining between 52% and 57% of the variance in social physique anxiety, and from 40% and 47% of the variance in fear of negative evaluation. For all racial groups, social physique anxiety mediated the relation between self-esteem and fear of negative evaluation. Self-esteem was not supported as a moderator of the relation between body mass index and social physique anxiety. Results suggest the importance of assessing social physique anxiety among college women, as well as studying the bioecological model longitudinally. Further results and implications are discussed for theory, research, and practice.
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    A Biopsychosocial Model of Body Image in New Mothers
    (2009) Welsh, Anne Cavanaugh; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The vast majority of eating disorders literature to date focuses on adolescent and college aged women. However, recent research suggests that eating disorders and struggles with body image are not limited to younger women, but instead occur in women of all ages (e.g. Hay, 1998). One group of women that might be particularly at risk for decreases in body image are first time mothers, as their bodies go through immense changes during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Thus far, the literature has shown a relationship between biological changes, such as weight retention, and low body image in postpartum women (e.g. Walker, 1998). However, little research has explored the role of psychosocial factors in postpartum body image. The current study explored a biopsychosocial model of postpartum image, drawing on psychosocial variables that had been shown to relate to body image in adolescent and college aged women. This study found that psychosocial factors (internalization of the thin ideal, pressure for thinness, and negative affect) accounted for variance in body satisfaction and disordered eating, above and beyond that of biomedical factors (weight change, postpartum BMI, and shape change). Additionally, psychosocial factors partially mediated the effect of weight change and shape change on body satisfaction and disordered eating. These findings have important implications for psychologists and health care professionals who work with new mothers.
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    Relationship of Yoga Experience to Body Satisfaction and Eating Attitudes
    (2008-04-11) Lawlor, Carrie Jayne; Beck, Kenneth; Public and Community Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Yoga, a mind-body exercise, may improve body dissatisfaction and decrease eating disorder symptoms among females by addressing four theories of antecedents to body dissatisfaction: internalization of the thinness ideal, social comparison theory, self-ideal discrepancy theory, and objectification theory. This study used a cross sectional survey to investigate whether there is a relationship between yoga experience among women and levels of antecedents to body dissatisfaction, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders symptoms. The results indicate that frequency of yoga practice is associated with a lower tendency to self-objectify. The data also indicate that a greater magnitude of lifetime practice of yoga is associated with body satisfaction. The data suggest that there may be a marginal relationship between a greater magnitude of lifetime yoga practice and actual-ideal discrepancies. These findings support the notion that historical yoga experience and shorter term intensity of yoga practice may be related to how women view their bodies.
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    BODY/IMAGE/NARRATIVE: CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC OF BODY SHAPE AND SIZE
    (2005-05-03) Brown, Sonya Christine; Fahnestock, Jeanne; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The dissertation examines body shape and size from a rhetorical perspective as ethos, or character, in contemporary American culture. The analysis is primarily of narrative and visual texts that proliferated in the debate over ideal body size and shape that has emerged in the last fifteen years. By demonizing fatness and glamorizing slenderness for women and muscularity for men, our culture has rendered all bodies' shapes and sizes rhetorical. The body as material and visual rhetoric is interpretable as representative of character, with the fat body representing a lack of the virtues that seem inherent in the lean body: health, fitness, discipline, beauty. Narratives written about individual's bodies, including weight loss success stories, eating disorder memoirs, size acceptance narratives, and films that feature actors in fat suits, have the possibility to maintain or challenge prevailing views about body shape and size and the relationship between body shape and size and character/ethos. The four narrative genres studied have emerged in mainstream cultural productions rather than what might be considered alternative media, and come from a wide variety of popular sources. These narrative genres, and also the visuals that accompany or transmit the narratives, are important pieces of the debate over acceptable body shape and size for men and women. The last fifteen years of the debate have brought with them changes to mainstream media through challenges to the ideal body image for women, though men, particularly heterosexual men, have limited venues through which to challenge media representations of ideal male physiques.