The cultural pressure for thinness and dieting is an important cause for an increased incidence of eating disorders. Thus, we studied the influences of the cultural pressure on body image, self image, and their relationship in 712 students (357 male and 355 female) of junior-high school age, when the prevalence of eating disorders has been known to increase. The body image was assessed by following three questions : 1) Choose adjectives suit for your own body shape (fat, average, or lean; and bad, normal, or fine), 2)How much are your actual and desirable body weights? How much do you think the standard body weight for the same and oppsoite sex students having the same height are, and 3) From among a set of eight figures drawing fron very thin to very heavy shapes of women, choose figures like actual and desirable body shapes (applied only for female students), and choose figures like atandard and attractive body shapes for women. The self image was assessed by the self-esteem inventory consisted by 23 items developed by Kajita. Female students were more interested in diet than male students (p<0.001) and the ratio of the intersted female students increased with advancing school grade (p<0.05). Although the female students had a lower obesity index than the male students, the ratio of those who thought their own body shape fot or bad was greater in female students than in male students (p<0.001) and the ratio increased with school grade (p<0.05). Independently of actual body weight, the female students desired to have lower body weight and thinner body shape than those they thought standard for themselves (p<0.001). The body shapes selected as standard or attractive by the female students were thinner tha those selected by the male students for women (p<0.001). The self-esteen score in female students was lower than that in male students (p<0.001) and was lower in the second- and third-grade female students than in the first grade students(p<0.001). The female students thinking their body shape fat showed lower self-esteem score than those thinking it averave or lean (p<0.001). Our results indicate that female students desire to be thinner than the other students and their higher self-esteem is associated with their thinner body image, while the male students show no such tendencies. We conclude that cody image, self image, and their relationship are considerably affected by recent cultural pressure concerning body shape and diet in female but not male junior-high school students.
