Psychological Determinants of Dieting among Teenage Girls 15-18 Years

During high school girls are a group at risk for developing eating disorders. Eating problems that appear in this period can range from dissatisfaction with body image, in keeping non-pathological diet to clean eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia nervosa. While only 3-5% of all adolescent girls suffer from the eating disorders (Levine, 1987), most of them are on diet (Rossen & Gross, 1987). The purpose of this study was to achieve recognition of risk factors in the development of eating disorders and determining to what extent those factors contribute to forecast dieting among teenage girls 15-18 years. A correlation research design was utilized to address the research objectives. The method used for data collection is surveying. A total of 200 adolescent girls aged from 15 - 18 attending a Gymnasium and three vocational schools in the city of Podgorica participated in the study. Measuring instruments used to collect the research data in this research are: Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, (Rosenberg, 1965). Body Shape Questionnaire; (Cooper, 1987), Neurotic Perfectionism Questionnaire (NPQ); (Mitzman, Slade and Dewey, 1994) and Retention rate of diet in adolescents (Patton, 1997). Demographic information such as age, class of school, Height and weight were also collected. Findings show that 70% teenage girls aged 15-18 years keep diet. Results of this study detected high correlation between the variables of self-esteem, body image dissatisfaction, neurotic perfectionism, keeping diet and the difference between real and desired BMI. These factors can be considered as high risk factors in the development of eating disorders and this combination of factors explains almost 60 % forecast variance of keeping diet.