ed in childhood. In general, a combination of the pubertal phase of the female body, the loosening of the individual's ties to parents, and the development of a stable and cohesive personality structure play profound roles in this process. Psychologists Ilana Attie and J. Brooks-Gun have done some work on this issue. They considered eating disorders within the so-called "developmental" perspective, which examines the emergence of eating disorders in adolescent girls as a function of pubertal growth, body image, personality development, and family relationships. The two psychologists examined 193 white females and their mothers during the former's middle-schooled years (13.93 years) and then two years later. They set out to see how much the development of eating problems represented a mode of accommodation to pubertal change. Taking a "developmental" approach, the authors studied the impact of the pubertal transition relative to other aspects of the female adolescent experience. (Attie and Brooks-Gun). These researchers emphasized one very significant fact: that as girls mature sexually, they accumulate large quantities of fat. For adolescent girls, this growth in fat tissue is one of the most dramatic physical changes associated with puberty, adding an average of 11 kg of weight in the form of body fat. This increase in fat is, in turn, directly connected to desires to be thinner. (Attie and Brooks-Gun, p.7O) This reality is due to the fact that, as Attie and Brooks-Gun demonstrate, female body image is intimately bound up with subjective perceptions of weight. Prepubescent girls who perceive themselves as underweight are most satisfied while the opposite ...
