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Restriktives Essverhalten bei Frauen in Führungspositionen
Streben Frauen in Führungspositionen auch bei ihrem Gewicht nach Perfektion?

Aim: In our affluent society slimness means fitness and attractiveness, but also success and drive to achieve. In order to keep a slim body over a long time, the eating behaviour of many female executives must be geared permanently to losing weight or avoiding weight gain. An important means of achieving this is restrained eating. It was the aim of our present study to reinforce this hypothesis which we established in our precursor study.

Test Subjects and Method: To this end we designed a questionnaire which we sent by email to the 300 German women in leading positions (top and middle management) involved in our precursor study in 2006. 124 female managers were willing to take part again. The present questionnaire contained a mix of open and closed questions. Eight of the 50 questions were about nutrition and health. In these questions we asked the managers about stereotype attitudes to slimness and career, about their satisfaction with their present body weight and about the kinds of eating behaviour they use to keep to their idea of an ideal body weight. Furthermore, we asked the women whether they see themselves as role models for their colleagues in matters of health.

Results: As in our precursor study, most of the female executives had a body mass index in the low and middle normal range. Most of them said that outward appearance and body shape are more important for women who want to reach a leading position than they are for men, and that here a slim, athletic body stands for vitality, high performance and success. The maintenance of a slim body over a long period of time is seen by female managers as a challenge which they aim to meet. To attain this ideal, most of the women make use of nutrition behaviour which we can call restrained eating. They see themselves as role models for the employees they are responsible for, also in health matters.

Conclusions: In this situation it is conceivable that the women may not only become mentally disturbed but also expect too much of themselves and develop psychosomatic stress diseases. That is why an important early preventive measure should involve especially education about nutrition and stress prevention. Furthermore it would make sense to ask fundamental questions about the roles of managers in workplace health promotion, especially with respect to the role model function wanted by employers and social systems.