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Objective Previous research suggested that exposure to the thin beauty ideal propagated by the media is associated with body dissatisfaction and the development of disordered eating. Given recent suggestions regarding the role of automatic processes, we aimed to enhance our understanding of automatic, unconscious responses to body pictures and the association with the internalization of the thin ideal and the severity of eating disorder symptoms. Method An affective priming task with body pictures of different weight as primes and a normal-weight body picture as target, which had to be evaluated with regard to attractiveness and desirability, was administered to healthy women with either subliminal prime presentation (Experiment 1) or conscious presentation (Experiment 2). Results Subliminal presentation did not affect the evaluation of the normal-weight target, although strength of evaluative shifts was significantly associated with internalization of the thin ideal. In contrast, the conscious presentation of the ultra-thin prime decreased and of the obese prime increased desirability and attractiveness ratings of the target. Discussion Prevention strategies focusing on the critical evaluation of the thin ideal are important. Future studies are warranted to enhance our understanding of automatic, unconscious processes in women experiencing eating disorders.

Objective Previous research demonstrated that the exposure to media portrayals of the thin body ideal negatively affects body satisfaction and mood of healthy women and thus represents a sociocultural risk factor for the development of eating disorders. However, at present, it is not known whether negative effects of the thin ideal are pronounced in eating-disordered patients. Method Female inpatients with a current diagnosis of anorexia nervosa (N = 36), bulimia nervosa (N = 32), or mood or anxiety disorder (N = 31), and women with no current psychiatric diagnosis were randomly assigned to exposure to magazine pictures depicting the thin female body ideal or landscape scenes in two experimental phases (leafing through a magazine followed by instructed imagination of a picture from the magazine). The groups were compared on measures of body satisfaction and mood that were collected before and after the two phases. Results Leafing through a fashion magazine was not associated with negative effects on body satisfaction or mood in all groups. Imagining the thin ideal resulted in a decrease in body satisfaction and a decrease in positive mood. We found no diagnosis-specific effects indicating no stronger negative impact of the thin ideal on eating-disorder patients. Discussion Given the lacking differences between eating-disordered patients and controls, these findings underline the importance of future research to enhance our understanding of what happens when patients are exposed to external or internal stimuli of media images of the thin ideal. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:708–715)