Objectives: To identify the impact of body mass index (BMI) and Western advertising and media on the stage of the nutrition transition among Jordanian women, and to evaluate their impact on eating styles and body image.

Design: A randomised cross-sectional survey that included a variety of culturally measured Likert-type scales and body size images. In addition, BMI was calculated based on measured height and weight.

Setting: In the homes of the participants. The data were collected by female interviewers who worked for the Jordan Department of Statistics.

Subjects: The sample was based on a random and representative selection of 800 mostly urban Jordanian women. A pre-test sample of 100 women was also used to validate the instruments.

Results: Women tended to agree that they ate based on emotional cues. They had high levels of disordered eating attitudes and behaviours and 42.1% were considered restrained eaters. However, these women also had higher than expected body esteem levels and desired a healthy body size. As expected, being obese was associated with a desire to lose weight, being a restrained and emotional eater, and having more disordered eating attitudes and behaviours. Similarly, Western advertising and media were associated with restrained and emotional eating, desired weight loss, and disordered eating attitudes and behaviours.

Conclusions: There is a need to develop health education materials that explain the influence of obesity on health and the negative psychological and physical consequences of restrained and emotional eating, building on the current cultural preferences of healthy body size. Further implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.