Psychology of Addictive Behaviors Copyright 1993 by the Educational Publishing Foundation

1993, Vol. 7, No. 4, 225-231 0893-164X/93/S3.00

Body Dissatisfaction, Self-Focus, and Dieting Status

Among Women
Todd F. Heatherton
This study examined body shape preferences, body dissatisfaction, and self-focus
between dieters and nondieters. Dieters were found to be more dissatisfied with their
bodies than were nondieters. Although dieters did not have more stringent standards for
body shape than nondieters, there was a larger discrepancy between ideal and current
shape for dieters owing to their greater body weights. Dieters were also found to be
highly and negatively self-focused on the Exner Sentence Completion Task (J. E. Exner,
1973). Moreover, dieting status was correlated with public rather than private self-
consciousness, suggesting that dieters are concerned with their public image. Taken
together, these data suggest that some women may be motivated to diet in part because
of intense self-focus about their current self-perception of being overweight.

Many researchers consider body dissatisfaction
to be centrally important in the initiation and
maintenance of dieting behavior (Fairburn &
Garner, 1988; Rosen, 1992). There are a number
of possible explanations for what determines
satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with body weight
and shape, and therefore which factors might
promote dieting among women. For example, it is
possible that some individuals (i.e., dieters) have
more extreme standards for physical appearance
so that even normal body weights are viewed as
unattractive. Alternatively, it is possible that
dieters and nondieters have similar views of what
constitutes an attractive or desirable body shape
but that dieters are farther from their ideals
because of actual excess weight. Finally, it is
possible that dieters are more attentive or aware
of their body shape than nondieters so that they
are more likely to notice even small discrepancies
between their current body weight and their ideal
body weight. The purpose of this article is to
examine aspects of body dissatisfaction that are
related to chronic dieting.1
Some evidence supports the view that women
are dissatisfied with their bodies—and are there-
I thank Judy Ingraham for her assistance in data
collection and Janet Polivy for her comments on this
research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Todd F. Heatherton, Department of
Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Electronic mail may
be sent to th@isr.harvard.edu.
225
fore dieting—because of society's extreme stan-
dards for thinness (for reviews, see Heatherton &
Baumeister, 1991; Striegel-Moore, Silberstein, &
Rodin, 1986). For example, Fallon and Rozin
(1985) found that women prefer body shapes that
are well below their current body shape and even
smaller than what they acknowledge is admired by
the average man. However, Zellner, Harner, and
Adler (1989) have demonstrated that only those
women who scored high on a measure of eating
psychopathology (The Eating Attitudes Test,
EAT; Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) expressed such
extreme standards; low scorers on EAT chose
ideal body shapes that were within the range of
attractiveness that they thought was preferred by
men. Thus, it is possible that only women who
endorse symptoms of more serious eating prob-
lems have exaggerated standards for thinness, and
therefore, such extreme standards might not be
related to dieting behavior in normal, nonclinical
individuals. There are many differences between
dieters and those with clinical eating disorders
1
One possibility that is not considered in the current
study is that dieters might overestimate their body size.
Such overestimation might predict dissatisfaction. How-
ever, recent reviews of the body estimation literature
conclude that many women (and not just those with
eating disorders) overestimate body size, limiting the
usefulness of this construct as a predictor of dissatisfac-
tion (see Cash & Brown, 1987; Garner, Garfinkel, &
Bonato, 1987; Polivy, Herman, & Pliner, 1990). More-
over, the current methodology did not allow for an
assessment of genuine body image distortion.
226 TODD F. HEATHERTON
(Herman & Polivy, 1988; Laessle, Tuschl, Waadt,
& Pirke, 1989; Polivy & Herman, 1987; Ruderman
& Grace, 1988). Specifically, bulimics and anorex-
ics are more likely than dieters to show signs of
serious psychopathology in addition to disordered
eating (Polivy, 1989); therefore, it is unknown
whether dieters will display the same sort of body
image disturbances (such as extreme thinness
expectations) as those with clinical eating disor-
ders. Thus, one goal of this study was to examine
the relation between chronic dieting and choice of
ideal standards for body shape.
A second possibility is that many dieters are
dissatisfied with their current shape because they
are actually overweight. That is, the body shape
viewed as ideal may be identical between dieters
and nondieters, although dieters may have a
larger current-ideal discrepancy because they
actually weigh more. There is considerable evi-
dence that chronic dieters (also called restrained
eaters) are heavier than nondieters (see Heather-
ton, Herman, Polivy, King, & McGree, 1988). In
fact, the average reported correlation between
scores on the Restraint Scale and percentage
overweight is around .38 (Heatherton et al., 1988).
Moreover, Blanchard and Frost (1983) found that
negative body image was associated with actual
higher weights, and Striegel-Moore, McAvay, and
Rodin (1986) found that percentage overweight
was the best predictor of feeling fat. However,
some data indicate that percentage overweight
and body dissatisfaction are unrelated in that
dissatisfaction occurs across all weight categories
(Polivy, Herman, & Pliner, 1990). This study also
examined the relation among body weight, body
dissatisfaction, and chronic dieting behavior.
Finally, it is possible that chronic dieters are
more dissatisfied with their bodies because they
are more attentive to or focused on possible
discrepancies between current and ideal stan-
dards. According to Higgin's (1987) self-discrep-
ancy theory, negative affect arises from an
awareness of a discrepancy between some ideal
and current standing on an important dimension.
Carver and Scheier (1981) proposed that such
current-ideal discrepancies motivate attempts to
reduce the discrepancy (in this case by dieting).
This motivation may depend on a high state of
self-focus; after all, one needs to focus on the
discrepancy for it to have a motivational impact.
There is indirect evidence that chronic dieters
are more highly self-focused than nondieters (see
Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). For example,
the Restraint Scale (a measure of chronic dieting,
Herman & Polivy, 1980) has been shown to
correlate with public self-consciousness, as mea-
sured by the Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenig-
stein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975; see Blanchard &
Frost, 1983). Other work has found the Restraint
Scale to be correlated with the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder Scale (Ashby, Lee, & Duke,
1979), again suggesting that restrained eating
patterns are associated with preoccupation with
self (Ruderman & Grace, 1987, 1988). Although
these various findings indicate a propensity for
dieters to be concerned about public image, they
do not indicate whether dieters are more self-
focused on a given occasion. Thus, the final goal of
this study was to examine the relation among
self-focus, body dissatisfaction, and dieting.
The purpose of this study was to examine how
thinness expectations, body weight, and self-focus
were related to body dissatisfaction. This study
also examined the prediction of chronic dieting.
Subjects were asked to complete a number of
self-report questionnaires in addition to complet-
ing a version of the Fallon and Rozin (1985)
Figure Rating Task and the Exner (1973) Sen-
tence Completion Task. On the basis of the body
dissatisfaction literature (Rosen, 1992), it was
expected that dieters would be more dissatisfied
with their bodies than nondieters. Moreover, this
dissatisfaction was predicted to be due to actual
overweight and heightened self-focus because
Zellner et al. (1989) demonstrated that only those
who reported signs of clinical eating disorders
have extreme standards for thinness.
Method
Subjects
Subjects consisted of 70 female visitors to the
Ontario Science Centre. Mean age of subjects was
21.6 years (SD = 4.1). On the basis of previous
convention, 35 subjects scoring higher than 16 on
the Restraint Scale (Herman & Polivy, 1980) were
classified as chronic dieters (restrained eaters),
whereas those 35 subjects scoring less than 16
were classified as nondieters (unrestrained).2
2
In this article, I use the terms dieter, chronic dieter,
and restrained eater interchangeably. In all cases I am
referring to those individuals who chronically attempt to
 DIETING AND DISSATISFACTION
Dieters were heavier (M = 137.5 Ib [62.4 kg];
SD = 19.4) than nondieters (M = 125.6 Ib [57.0
kg]; SD = 17.3), /(68) = 2.72, p < .01, although
there were no differences in height or age
(ps > .10).
Procedure
This study took place at the Ontario Science
Centre, which is a museum of science and
technology. Visitors represent a diverse popula-
tion, although they are predominantly Canadian
and American. One of the permanent exhibits at
the Science Centre is an area where visitors can
take part in a psychological study. Subjects were
recruited by means of a large sign advertising a
study that examined the relation between sen-
tence completions and personality among women.
When subjects volunteered, they signed an
informed consent form and then were asked to
complete the Exner Sentence Completion Task
(Exner, 1973). Scheier and Carver (1977) demon-
strated that the Exner task is a valid measure of
self-focused attention. This task consists of 30
sentence stems that the subject is required to
complete. Each response can be scored according
to attentional focus: self-focus, external world, or
neutral. The self-focus score "represents the
response which clearly focuses on the self with
little or no regard for the external world" (Exner,
1973, p. 440; "I am an ugly person."). These
responses can also be scored to indicate whether
they are negative in content. The external-world
focus represents responses that indicate a clear
concern for other things or people ("I am in love
with my wife."). Neutral responses clearly are
neither self nor other focused ("I am here."). The
Exner task was scored by two independent raters
according to the criteria of Exner. Interrater
agreement was high, with a mean percentage
agreement of 92.3% (SD = 5.6). Scoring Conflicts
were resolved by discussion, with the primary
experimenter serving as final judge. Both raters
were unaware of each subject's restraint status;
one rater was unaware of the experimental
hypothesis.
restrain their intake of food to lose weight. There is
some controversy over the use of various dieter descrip-
tions; those interested in this issue should consult
Heatherton, Herman, Polivy, King, and McGree (1988)
for a full discussion of these issues.
227
Subjects were then asked to complete a number
of other measures that were supposedly being
used to predict the manner in which people
completed sentences. Subjects completed a short
measure that was based on Fallon and Rozin's
(1985) Body Shape Preference Test (designed by
and illustrated in Stunkard, Sorenson, & Schlus-
inger, 1980). This task requires subjects to choose
which of nine body shapes best represents their
current shape and their ideal shape. Possible
scores on this version of the task ranged from 10 to
90, with 90 representing the largest possible size.
In addition, subjects are asked to indicate the
figure that best represents the majority of their
own sex. Questions regarding the opposite sex
were not included because this study used only
female subjects. Subjects were asked also to rate
how pleased they were with their figure and height
on a scale from 10 to 90, with 10 meaning not at all
pleased and 90 meaning very pleased. This measure
was included to examine how dissatisfied subjects
were with a discrepancy between their current and
ideal figure. Subjects also completed the State
Self-Esteem Scale (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991),
which has three factors: Performance Self-
Esteem, Social Self-Esteem, and Physical Appear-
ance Self-Esteem. Only the physical appearance
factor was used in the current study. Finally,
subjects completed the Restraint Scale (Herman
& Polivy, 1980) and the Self-Consciousness Scale
(Fenigstein et al., 1975). The Self-Consciousness
Scale has three components: Public Self-Con-
sciousness, Private Self-Consciousness, and Social
Anxiety.
The order in which subjects completed the
questionnaires was deemed important because of
possible priming effects. Therefore, all subjects
completed the questionnaires in the following
order: Exner Sentence Completion Task, Figure
Rating Task, Self-Consciousness Scale, State
Self-Esteem Scale, and Restraint Scale. Weight
and height were self-reported on the figures task.
Results
As has been previously documented in the
literature, chronic dieters (restrained eaters) were
found to have greater body dissatisfaction than
nondieters. For example, on the single item asking
the extent of satisfaction with current shape,
dieters were much less satisfied (M = 46.4,
228 TODD F. HEATHERTON

SD = 20.9) than were nondieters (M = 59.5, .0001. An examination of the self-focused re-
SD = 21.9), f(68) = 2.55, p < .05. Similarly, on sponses showed that those of dieters were
the physical appearance factor of the State significantly more likely to be negative (M = 2.63,
Self-Esteem Scale, dieters were significantly less SD = 2.6) than those of nondieters (A/ = 0.66,
pleased (M = 19.0, SD = 3.4) than were nondiet- SD = 1.19), f(68) = 4.09, p < .0001. Finally, re-
ers (M = 21.7, SD = 3.5),f(68) = 3.17, p < .01. sponses were coded to assess whether any of the
sentence stems contained references to body
weight or shape. Not surprisingly, dieters were
Body Dissatisfaction more likely to mention weight issues (M = 1.2,
SD = 2.2) in their responses than were nondieters
The Fallen and Rozin (1985) figures task was (M = 0.2, SD = 0.5), f(68) = 2.66, p < .05. More-
used to examine whether body dissatisfaction was over, it appears that this self-focus was more
due to differences in choice of ideal body size or concerned with the public (presentable self) than
due to differences in current size. Overall, 75.7% the private self: only the correlation between
of subjects reported an ideal that was smaller than restraint and public self-consciousness was signifi-
their current rating, suggesting that the desire to cant, r(68) = .33,p < .01; the correlation between
be thinner is widespread. However, whereas 57.1 % private self-consciousness and restraint was not
of unrestrained subjects chose an ideal thinner significant, r(68) = .08, p > .10.
than their current figure, 94.3% of restrained
subjects chose an ideal thinner than their current
figure, suggesting that dieters are more likely than
Dieting Behavior
nondieters to desire a thinner figure, x 2 (l> N =
3
70) = 13.1,p < .005. This study has demonstrated that dieters are
Dieters viewed their current figure as being more dissatisfied with their bodies than are
larger (M = 39.2, SD = 11.2) than did nondieters nondieters and that this dissatisfaction is not due
(M = 31.6, SD = 12.5), f(68) = 2.67, p < .01, to differences in preferences for the ideal body
although they did not differ in choice for ideal shape. However, it is of interest to examine
body shape (M = 26.2, SD = 5.7 for dieters vs. whether body weight or self-focused attention
M = 26.0, SD = 6.9 for nondieters; t < 1) or for contribute to body dissatisfaction in predicting
their view of the average figure (M = 30.7, SD = dieting behavior. A series of hierarchical regres-
6.5 for dieters vs. M = 32.8, SD = 6.8 for non- sion analyses were conducted to examine whether
dieters; t < 1). The discrepancy between current other variables in this study increased the propor-
and ideal figure was significantly correlated with tion of variance explained in restraint scores
body mass index (BMI = weight/height2), r(68) = beyond the variance explained by dissatisfaction
.67, p < .0001, suggesting that subjects were with body weight when considered alone. To
probably accurate in their ratings of current provide a stable estimate of body dissatisfaction, I
figure. Again, dieters weighed more on average created an index by adding standard scores for the
than did nondieters. Thus, it is possible that body single-item satisfaction questionnaire, the discrep-
dissatisfaction is more closely related to actual ancy between ideal and current body shape, and
body size than to any difference in perceptions of the physical appearance factor of the State
the ideal body shape. Self-Esteem Scale. The reliability for this index
was .79, and it was more highly correlated with

Self-Focus
Heatherton and Baumeister (1991) proposed
that heightened self-focus contributes to body-
image dissatisfication among dieters. To test this
hypothesis, dieters completed the Exner Sentence
Completion Task, which measures spontaneous
self-focus. Chronic dieters were more highly self-
focused (M = 15.9, SD = 3.3) than were non-
dieters (M = 11.7, SD = 3.4), f(68) = 5.31, p <
3
Overall, subjects reported a mean current figure
rating of 35.4 (SD = 12.4) and a mean ideal figure rating
of 26.1 (SD = 6.2). These values are very close to the
results obtained by Fallen and Rozin (1985), which were
36.4 for current figure and 27.9 for the ideal figure. Note
that Fallen and Rozin actually used a 9-point rather
than a 90-point scale; therefore, the mean values have
been multiplied by 10 to make the scale comparable
between this study and that study.
 DIETING AND DISSATISFACTION
dietary restraint than were any one of its
components (r = -.52, adjusted/?2 = 27.2).
A hierarchical regression analysis was used to
test whether BMI, highest weight ever, self-focus,
negative self-focus, or aspects of self-conscious-
ness added to body dissatisfaction in predicting
scores on the Restraint Scale. This analysis
revealed that only self-focus on the Exner (1973)
task (change in adjusted R2 = 17.4%) and public
self-consciousness (change in adjusted/?2 = 2.6%)
added significantly to body dissatisfaction in the
prediction of restraint scores. The final model of
body dissatisfaction, self-focus, and public self-
consciousness explained 46.2% of the variance in
restraint scores, F(3, 66) = 20.73, p < .0001. The
same pattern of results occurred when BMI was
forced into the equation. That is, body dissatisfac-
tion, Exner self-focus, and public self-conscious-
ness all added significantly to BMI in predicting
restraint scores, and the adjusted R2 value
(45.6%) was lower than that for the model with
only the three variables.4
Discussion
The results of this study are consistent with past
evidence showing that chronic dieters are more
dissatisfied with their bodies than are nondieters
(see Rosen, 1992). In addition, however, this
study found that body dissatisfaction was related
to having a larger body size and to self-
preoccupation, which suggests that the relation
between body dissatisfaction and the motivation
to diet probably involves multiple psychological
processes.
Dieters report having larger figures than they
would like to have, although they do not appear to
differ from nondieters in their perceptions of the
ideal body shape; therefore, dieters may be more
unhappy with their bodies because they are
heavier than nondieters rather than because they
have more extreme thinness standards. This is
supported by the finding that the discrepancy
between current and ideal body shape was
significantly correlated with BMI and by the daita
showing that dieters weighed more than nondiet-
ers, which suggests that the figure task ratings
were relatively accurate. It is important to note,
however, that because these data are correlational
it is impossible to know the direction of the
relation between discrepancy from ideal stan-
dards and body dissatisfaction. It is possible that
229
dissatisfied respondents might have reported
exaggerated body weights or that satisfied respon-
dents might have believed their weight to be lower
than was true. Although correlations between
self-reported body weight and actual body weight
tend to be quite high, a review of this literature
indicated that obese individuals are more likely to
underreport their body weights (Cameron &
Evers, 1990). Thus, it is possible that the heavier
restrained subjects were more likely to underre-
port body weight. In any case, chronic dieters
appear to be dissatisfied with their bodies partially
because they are heavier than they would like
to be.
This study also found that dieting behavior was
significantly related to heightened self-focus as
evidenced by dieters having significantly higher
scores on the Exner (1973) measure of self-focus.
Chronic dieters completed significantly more
sentence stems with self-focused statements and
were more likely to be negative in these self-
statements than were nondieters. In fact, self-
focus on the Exner Sentence Completion Task
was more highly correlated with restraint scores
than was BMI or body dissatisfaction. The self-
focus of dieters is apparently related more to their
public image than to their private image. This
study replicated previous findings (Blanchard &
Frost, 1983) of a significant relation between
restraint and public self-consciousness but not
between restraint and private self-consciousness.
Thus, chronic dieters are particularly attentive to
how they appear to others, and they appear to be
generally unhappy with this appearance. This is
supported by Striegel-Moore, McAvay, and
Rodin's (1986) finding that one reason women
feel fat is because they constantly compare
4
Some readers might be interested in an examination
of the subfactors of the Restraint Scale: Concern for
Dieting (CD) and Weight Fluctuations (WF). The main
predictors of WF were negative self-focus on the Exner
(1973) task and largest weight ever, which together
explained 17.0% of the variance; forcing BMI, Exner
self-focus, or body dissatisfaction did not improve the
explanation of WF. The best predictor of CD was Exner
self-focus, which explained 15.2% of the variance;
forcing BMI or body dissatisfaction into the model did
not improve the explanation of CD. This can be viewed
as supporting the assertions of Heatherton et al. (1988)
that researchers should use total scores on the Restraint
Scale rather than CD or WF scores.
230 TODD F. HEATHERTON
themselves with other women; such comparisons
require constant self-monitoring.
Taken as a whole, these results suggest the
possibility that those individuals who focus or
dwell on their larger than ideal body shape may be
especially motivated to diet. High levels of
aversive self-awareness or self-focus may enhance
feelings of unattractiveness and incompetence so
that some individuals try harder to be successful at
dieting. Again, given the correlational nature of
these data, further research is necessary before we
can make definitive conclusions about the role of
self-focus in body dissatisfaction and about the
motivation to diet. The current data simply
indicate that women who are dissatisfied with
their bodies are highly and negatively self-focused
and endorse items indicating that they are chronic
dieters. However, this pattern does support a
recent proposition that aversive self-awareness is
an important determinant of binge eating, which
is common among chronic dieters (Heatherton &
Baumeister, 1991). Similarly, these results agree
with clinical observations that individuals with
eating-related difficulties often engage in behav-
iors that indicate heightened self-focus, such as
constantly inspecting themselves in mirrors or
seeking feedback about their appearance (Rosen,
1992).
This research has highlighted some aspects of
body dissatisfaction among women that might
promote chronic dieting behaviors. However,
there are many other factors that remain to be
examined. The developmental forces that lead to
body dissatisfaction are just beginning to be
understood (Collins, 1991; Lerner & Jovanovic,
1990), and the influence (or existence) of body-
image distortion remains controversial (see Polivy
et al., 1990). Hence, more research that examines
developmental, cultural, and familial factors on
body dissatisfaction and dieting behavior is needed.
Moreover, this study did not include men and
therefore it is not clear whether the results of this
study could be generalized to all dieters or
whether it is only women who show these specific
patterns of body dissatisfaction. Similarly, the role
of heightened self-focus in the maintenance and
disruption of dietary restraint requires additional
empirical study.
In summary, the results of this study indicate
that chronic dieting behavior among women is
related to self-focus on the discrepancy between
current—larger than desired—body shape and
ideal body shape. Although dieters do not differ
from nondieters in their choice of the ideal figure,
dieters are heavier than nondieters and therefore
must diet to achieve their ideal. Continual self-
focus on the discrepancy between current and
ideal body shape may eventually produce aversive
feelings of self-dislike, which may eventually lead
to even lower self-esteem and increased likeli-
hood of dietary failure (Heatherton & Polivy,
1992; Polivy, Heatherton, & Herman, 1988).
Conversely, therapy aimed at reducing body
dissatisfaction might increase overall self-esteem
and diminish the motivation to diet (Rosen, Cado,
Silberg, Srebnik, & Wendt, 1990). Thus, in the
absence of serious health risks to being moder-
ately overweight, both clinical and public educa-
tion efforts might emphasize the importance of
self-acceptance in order to promote psychological
and physiological well-being (Brownell, 1991).
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