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The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal

BACKGROUND: Negative body image is a common psychological phenomenon among Chinese college students meriting investigation. Peers and the media are important factors that negatively influence body image. This study explored the mechanisms of media and peers promoting negative body image among Chines...

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Autores principales: Shen, Jianting, Chen, Jinjun, Tang, Xiwen, Bao, Shangfei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35413877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00575-0
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author Shen, Jianting
Chen, Jinjun
Tang, Xiwen
Bao, Shangfei
author_facet Shen, Jianting
Chen, Jinjun
Tang, Xiwen
Bao, Shangfei
author_sort Shen, Jianting
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Negative body image is a common psychological phenomenon among Chinese college students meriting investigation. Peers and the media are important factors that negatively influence body image. This study explored the mechanisms of media and peers promoting negative body image among Chinese college students. METHOD: Data from 407 college students (173 men and 234 women) were collected using the Revised Social and Cultural Attitude Questionnaire of Appearance, Appearance Comparison Scale, Peer Impact Scale, and Negative Body Image Scale. RESULTS: Correlational analysis results demonstrated that media attention was not significantly correlated with negative body image. All other variables were significantly positively correlated. Path analysis results indicated that the direct effect of media attention on negative body image was not significant, while the direct effect of peer impact was significant. In addition, appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal acted as a chained indirect effect between negative body image, media attention, and peer impact. CONCLUSIONS: The research revealed that focusing on perfect bodies displayed in the media did not produce a negative body image. However, focusing on the media and peer conversations regarding the body caused the participants to compare appearances and internalize ideal body shape standards, leading to negative self-evaluations.
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spelling pubmed-90064622022-04-14 The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal Shen, Jianting Chen, Jinjun Tang, Xiwen Bao, Shangfei J Eat Disord Research Article BACKGROUND: Negative body image is a common psychological phenomenon among Chinese college students meriting investigation. Peers and the media are important factors that negatively influence body image. This study explored the mechanisms of media and peers promoting negative body image among Chinese college students. METHOD: Data from 407 college students (173 men and 234 women) were collected using the Revised Social and Cultural Attitude Questionnaire of Appearance, Appearance Comparison Scale, Peer Impact Scale, and Negative Body Image Scale. RESULTS: Correlational analysis results demonstrated that media attention was not significantly correlated with negative body image. All other variables were significantly positively correlated. Path analysis results indicated that the direct effect of media attention on negative body image was not significant, while the direct effect of peer impact was significant. In addition, appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal acted as a chained indirect effect between negative body image, media attention, and peer impact. CONCLUSIONS: The research revealed that focusing on perfect bodies displayed in the media did not produce a negative body image. However, focusing on the media and peer conversations regarding the body caused the participants to compare appearances and internalize ideal body shape standards, leading to negative self-evaluations. BioMed Central 2022-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9006462/ /pubmed/35413877 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00575-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Shen, Jianting
Chen, Jinjun
Tang, Xiwen
Bao, Shangfei
The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title_full The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title_fullStr The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title_full_unstemmed The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title_short The effects of media and peers on negative body image among Chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
title_sort effects of media and peers on negative body image among chinese college students: a chained indirect influence model of appearance comparison and internalization of the thin ideal
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35413877
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00575-0
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