The perception of values in food commercials on the part of young people with and without eating disorders

Advertising uses stereotyped body images to promote physical ideals and unhealthy eating habits related to food products which are targeted especially at young people. The purpose of this study, carried out in Barcelona (Spain) in May 2013, was to test the perception of 139 young people of university age - with and without eating disorders - regarding 25 values in seven food commercials that did and did not use body image strategies. Results show that only the group of young people with eating disorders considered commercials using body image strategies to have a very negative influence on values such as health, well-being, family and effort. In contrast, the assessment of the two groups regarding the rest of the commercials greatly coincided. These results show that today’s university youth have accepted as normal a beauty canon based on the prevailing social and economic order, while young people in treatment for eating disorders have learned to denaturalize such messages.