• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.475-495
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• 2017

The present study aimed to understand young adult women's disordered eating symptoms with materialism and pathological celebrity worship. Specifically, we hypothesized that pathological celebrity worship and internalization of sociocultural attitudes towards appearance would mediate the relationship between materialism and disordered eating symptoms among young adult women. A total of 601 female college students participated in this study. As hypothesized, we found that materialism predicted pathological celebrity worship and increased internalization of sociocultural attitudes towards appearance, which in turn, led to a higher level of disordered eating symptoms. Our findings suggest that young adult women's disordered eating behaviors should be understood as a sociocultural phenomenon rather than as an individual woman's personal issue.