Abstract

HERNANDEZ-ALCANTARA, Alfredo  and  LEON HERNANDEZ, Rodrigo. Restrictive diet or excessive exercise: ¿What are the adolescents choose to reduce the size?. Rev. Mex. de trastor. aliment [online]. 2012, vol.3, n.2, pp.133-140. ISSN 2007-1523.

The socio-cultural or peer pressure on pre-adolescents and adolescents who desire a perfect body figure can lead to the practice of excessive exercise and/or restrictive diet in order to achieve thinness. So the purpose of this study is to evaluate both factors in a group of Mexican women who practice organized and disciplined physical activity in an institutional framework and Mexican female who don't practice it. The sample consisted on N= 774 women: n=387 practice physical activity and n=387 do not exercise in a disciplined manner. The average age was M=11.8, SD=2.2 with a range between 9 and 16 years old. It was used a scale that measure dietary risk factors and one that measure excessive exercise. Results. An ANOVA generated a model that suggests that women who don't practice organized and disciplined exercise and are more exercise dependence, incur in more restrictive diet. It follows that among the girls who don't practice organized physical activity (exercise) dependence could be reduced to an attitude towards physical exercise combined with restricted diet, for weight control and reducing size. This suggests that physical activity, sports and recreational organized activities organized within an institutional framework promotes eating health.

Keywords : Restrictive diet; sport; exercise; eating disorders.