A prospective study of pressures from parents, peers, and the media on extreme weight change behaviors among adolescent boys and girls

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Abstract

The current study was designed to evaluate the role of sociocultural influences over a 16 month period on strategies to lose weight, extreme weight loss strategies, and strategies to increase muscles among adolescent boys (n=344) and girls (n=246). All participants completed measures of body dissatisfaction, body image importance, strategies to lose weight, extreme weight loss strategies, and strategies to increase muscles. Measures of perceived pressure to lose weight or increase muscles from mother, father, best male friend, best female friend and the media were also evaluated. Data were gathered on three occasions, 8 months apart. The results demonstrated that boys showed a decrease in strategies to lose weight and increase muscles over time, whereas girls showed an increase. Both boys and girls showed an increase in extreme weight loss strategies with girls demonstrating a greater increase than boys. The sociocultural influences generally were perceived by girls to relate to messages to lose weight, whereas for boys they were perceived to relate to increasing muscles. Messages from parents, particularly fathers, were strong predictors of both strategies to lose weight and increase muscles among boys, with the media and best male friend playing a limited role. For girls, the strongest influences were mothers and best female friends, with few influences from fathers or the media. The results of this study are discussed in terms of the importance of the various sociocultural influences in shaping body change strategies among young adolescent boys and girls, and the implications of these findings for intervention programs for adolescents.

Introduction

A substantial body of research has focused on the prevalence of extreme weight loss strategies among adolescent girls (e.g., Stice, 2001; Stormer & Thompson, 1996) and the sociocultural factors that are associated with these behaviors (e.g., Byely, Archibald, Graber, & Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Monteath & McCabe, 1997; Wertheim, Paxton, Schultz, & Muir, 1997). More recent literature has investigated weight change behaviors among adolescent boys, with a particular emphasis on increasing muscle and weight loss (Drewnowski & Yee, 1987; Furnham & Calnan, 1998; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a; Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000; Ricciardelli, & McCabe, 2001a, Ricciardelli, & McCabe, 2001b). There has been a more limited examination of the sociocultural influences that are associated with these behaviors among adolescent boys (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003; Ricciardelli, McCabe, & Banfield, 2000; Vincent & McCabe, 2000).

The present study was designed to determine the predictive role of sociocultural influences (parents, peers, media) on body image and behaviors to either lose weight or increase muscle, as well as the use of extreme weight loss behaviors at three time points over a 16 month time period among adolescent boys and girls. This study is focused on evaluating the social component of the biopsychosocial framework to explain health risk behaviors to achieve the ideal body endorsed by society (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2004). This framework proposes that body image, disordered eating, strategies to increase muscles, as well as extreme weight change behaviors are shaped by biological, psychological and social factors. Biological factors include body mass index and pubertal timing, psychological factors include positive and negative affect and self-esteem, and social factors include perceived pressures from parents, peers and the media to alter weight and shape. This framework has received support for weight loss among adolescent girls, but there has been limited empirical investigation of the utility of this framework among adolescent boys. An earlier study examined the role of parents and peers on health risk behaviors of adolescents over an 8 month period (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2003). However, this is the first study that has employed a prospective design to examine a broad range of sociocultural influences on health risk behaviors to either lose weight or increase muscles among adolescent boys.

A number of previous longitudinal studies have examined the relationship between sociocultural influences and disordered eating among adolescent girls. For example, Field et al. (1999) conducted a 1 year follow-up of 6982 girls aged 6–14 years. The results indicated that importance of thinness to peers and wanting to look like females in the media were predictive of beginning to purge at least monthly. A later study by the same research team (Field et al., 2001) reported on a 1 year follow-up study of 6770 girls and 5287 boys between the ages of 9 and 14 years. The authors found that those boys and girls who were focused on looking like their same-sex role models in the media were more likely to be concerned about their weight. Further, if fathers were perceived to view thinness or lack of fat as important, both boys and girls were more likely than their peers to become constant dieters.

Body image is influenced by the culturally defined ideal body type prescribed by society for females and males (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a). For girls, the ideal is reflective of a slender prepubescent-like body. This is in contrast to the V-shaped masculine physique that is valued by males (Furnham & Calnan, 1998; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a; McKay-Parks & Read, 1997; Pope et al., 2000). Pressure to attain the ideal body type has been used to explain the emergence and maintenance of body dissatisfaction among girls and boys. In particular, societal pressures have been reported to explain dissatisfaction with weight, a preoccupation with dieting and an increase in the incidence of eating disorders (Griffiths & McCabe, 2000; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a; Powell & Kahn, 1995; Tiggemann & Rothblum, 1988). It would appear that these cognitions in relation to body image and dietary behaviors are at least partly due to the ideal body form promoted with the society. In a comprehensive review of the literature, Ricciardelli & McCabe (2004) demonstrated that the influence of sociocultural factors in the expression or maintenance of body dissatisfaction and health risk behaviors among adolescent boys remains relatively unexplored. However, one would expect that negative cognitions among boys in terms of the extent to which their body conforms to the ideal endorsed by society might also predict poor body image and the adoption of health risk behaviors.

Most of the past research on parental influence has focused on adolescent girls, and has primarily examined the association between parental pressures and weight loss, rather than strategies to increase muscles. Maternal encouragement to lose weight has been found to be associated with daughter’s reports of body dissatisfaction (Benedikt, Wertheim, & Love, 1998), while mothers of girls who displayed bulimic symptoms, as well as body dissatisfaction, have been found to be more critical of their daughter’s weight and attractiveness than mothers of control respondents (Pike & Rodin, 1991).

Peers have also been found to transmit sociocultural messages that influence body image perceptions and weight concerns (Dunkley, Wertheim, & Paxton, 2001; McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2004a; McCabe, Ricciardelli & Finemore, 2002; Taylor et al., 1998; Vincent & McCabe, 2000; Wertheim et al., 1997). Peer discussions and modelling about weight-related issues have been found to further reinforce and perpetuate the importance of the perceived societal ideal among girls (Dunkley et al., 2001; Paxton, 1996) and boys (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003).

Studies have generally concluded that the media transmits messages that result in high levels of body dissatisfaction among adolescent boys and girls (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2001a; Ricciardelli et al., 2000; Thompson & Heinberg, 1999). The general consensus is that the media is an extremely powerful medium that promotes the thin ideal, which, in turn, contributes to body dissatisfaction in females. There also appears to be a growing media culture that is directed at the promotion of unnatural and unrealistic media representations of muscular male images (Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, & Borowiecki, 1999). While one study (Ricciardelli et al., 2000) found that adolescent boys perceived the media to have either a positive effect or no effect on their body image, other research has suggested that media images can lead to a preoccupation with wanting a more muscular body (Andersen & Di Domenico, 1992; Pope et al., 1999; Spitzer, Henderson, & Zivian, 1999).

Few studies have examined the combined role of parents, peers, and the media on health risk behaviors. Studies that have examined the impact of a number of sociocultural influences on these behaviors in adolescent boys and girls have produced inconsistent findings. McCabe and Ricciardelli (2001a) found that mothers and peers were instrumental in encouraging adolescent girls to lose weight or increase muscle tone that would move them closer to the societal ideal. However, similar pressures were not perceived by adolescent boys. This supports earlier suggestions that boys may be less influenced by sociocultural pressures than girls (Andersen & Holman, 1997; Steen, Wadden, Foster, & Andersen, 1996). However, Ricciardelli et al. (2000) found that mothers and fathers act as role models and social reinforcers with regard to body change methods among adolescent boys. More specifically, boys who reported receiving messages from fathers to exercise reported engaging in more exercise to alter their body shape and the size of their muscles.

Most of the longitudinal studies have examined weight loss behaviors among adolescent girls, with only minimal attention being devoted to a longitudinal examination of body dissatisfaction and weight loss behaviors in adolescent boys. Ricciardelli and McCabe (2003) conducted a longitudinal study over an 8 month period among adolescent boys and found that parents and peers played a limited role in predicting extreme body change strategies over this time period. This would suggest that sociocultural influences may play a role in extreme eating behaviors among adolescents. No studies have conducted a longitudinal evaluation of the impact of sociocultural influences on behaviors to increase muscle tone in adolescent girls, an area that may be of increasing concern for girls. In fact, recent research has suggested that both boys and girls are focused on a slim, muscular body, with the difference between the sexes being more level of muscles, rather than a quantitative difference (McCabe et al., 2002; Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001a, Vartanian, Giant, & Passino, 2001). This is an important area of investigation, given the association between body change strategies, self-esteem and mental health of adolescent boys and girls (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001a).

The aim of the present study was to investigate the evidence or the sociocultural factors in the biopsychosocial framework proposed by Ricciardelli & McCabe (2004) in predicting body image disturbance and health risk behaviors among adolescent boys and girls. It evaluated the role of sociocultural pressures (from parents, peers, media) on body image and health risk behaviors (lose weight, extreme weight loss strategies, or increase muscles) among adolescent boys and girls over a period of 16 months. This length of time was chosen to allow sufficient opportunity for the sociocultural messages to impact on both body image and body change strategies.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants in the study at time 1 were 494 boys (mean age=13.08 years) and 359 girls (mean age=12.89 years) enrolled in grade 7 at high school. The participants at time 2 were 438 boys (mean age=13.74 years) and 338 girls (mean age=13.61 years), and at time 3 the participants were 344 boys (mean age=14.49 years) and 246 girls (mean age=14.22 years). The analyses for the current paper are based on the responses of the 590 participants (344 boys, 246 girls) who completed the questionnaires

Results

Repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted to determine changes over time in body dissatisfaction and body change strategies among adolescent boys and girls. The means and standard deviations for all independent and dependent variables for times 1, 2 and 3 are summarized in Table 1.

Discussion

This longitudinal study was designed to determine changes over time in the body image and health risk behaviors of adolescent boys and girls. Further, it examined the role of sociocultural pressures (i.e., perceived pressures from mother, father, best male friend, best female friend, media) to both lose weight and increase muscle, on the body image and health risk behaviors of both adolescent boys and girls.

The results demonstrated that as expected, at all points in time, girls were more likely

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