PERSONAL HEALTH : You Still Can’t Be Too Thin

Now more than ever for American women, thin is in.

“The overvaluation of thinness continues,” a team of researchers from American University in Washington concluded after a study of what they call “current American society’s depiction of the ideal female body.” The study was based on analysis of body measurements in Playboy magazine centerfolds and Miss America contestants and diet and exercise articles in six women’s magazines over the last 30 years.

Body measurements--bust, waist and hip--decreased for Miss America contestants from 1979 to 1988, while remaining at an already low level for Playboy centerfolds, the study found. Earlier studies had documented decreases for both groups from 1959 to 1978.

Body weight for these women was 13% to 19% below expected weights for women of similar age. The American Psychiatric Assn.’s classification of psychiatric diagnoses defines a weight of more than 15% below normal as one criterion for anorexia nervosa.

“Thus a majority of these ‘ideals’ of our society may be classified as having one of the major symptoms of an eating disorder,” the researchers concluded.

The team also found “a dramatic increase” in the number of articles on diet and exercise in women’s magazines since 1959. In the last eight years, exercise articles have surpassed diet articles.

Their findings were reported in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.