Over the past decade, there has been an increase in academic research on media and its influences on body satisfaction. To date, the majority of body image literature focuses on low body satisfaction. While low body satisfaction leads to negative outcomes, high body satisfaction leads to a host of positive outcomes. Further, in a non-academic domain, it would seem that even some media icons are starting to take part in the effort to try to promote positive appearance messages. Singers like Christina Aguilera, Colbie Caillat, and Alessia Cara have begun writing songs like Beautiful, Try, and Scars To Your Beautiful to combat the rampant standard of the thin ideal. The current study consists of an experiment to examine the effects of positive or negative appearance music lyrics and their influence on body related outcomes (body satisfaction measured implicitly through an IAT, self-reports of body satisfaction, and observed body surveillance) in emerging adult women while moderating by adherence to sociocultural attitudes of media ideals. Results revealed that participants who listened to the positive lyrics reported significantly better body satisfaction as compared to those who listened to the negative lyrics. However, those who listened to positive lyrics did not report significantly better body satisfaction compared to those in the neutral condition and those in the neutral condition did not differ significantly from those in the negative condition. Due to preconceived schema regarding how participants already felt about their appearance, perhaps they were primed to hear lyrics confirming their appearance fears (or soothing them), but failed to attend to lyrics "unappearance" related (the neutral lyrics). Therefore, when asked about their body satisfaction, their responses reflected what they attended to, namely, either the positive or negative lyrics, not the neutral lyrics.

The health status of African American and Hispanic communities is in need of intervention. These minority groups have a health disparity gap from other races. The incidences of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity are greater in the African American and Hispanic communities. There is a need to continue addressing the specific health issues, along with ideas of body perception, plaguing the African American and Hispanic populations in the United States. Such disparities typically include those who follow “western” diets, have a lack of exercise, are predisposed to chronic illness, as well as have a need for continuous education of the subject matter. This research project is addressing the need for nutrition interventions in the Johnson City, Tennessee minority community, specifically the African American and Hispanic populations. Prevention can be a useful tool in the reduction of health disparities. Freshman, minority students represent a suitable population to implement prevention strategies. East Tennessee State University’s Quest Program is designed specifically for freshman, minority students. The focus group of this research project includes the participants of the Quest program at East Tennessee State University (ETSU). The purpose of this research is to determine the degree of nutrition knowledge and to assess perceptions of body image of minority freshman at ETSU.

abstract: Dominant discourses of health and fitness perpetuate particular ideologies of what it means to be “healthy” and “fit,” often conflating the two terms through conceptualizing the appearance of physical fitness as health. The discourse of healthism, a concept rooted in the economic concept of neoliberalism, fosters health as an individual and moral imperative to perform responsible citizenship, making the appearance of the “fit” body a valued representation of both health and self-discipline. This perspective neglects the social determinants of health and ignores the natural variation of the human body in shape, size, and ability, assuming that health can be seen visually on the body. Through a case study of one particular location of a popular commercial gym chain in an urban city of the Southwestern United States, this study employs a critical discourse analysis of the gym space itself including a collection of advertisements, photographs, and signs, in addition to participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with diverse women who exercise at this gym to explore how women resist and/or (re)produce discourses of healthism related to health, fitness, and body image. Ultimately, critical analysis shows that the gym itself produces and reifies the discourse of healthism through narratives of simultaneous empowerment and obligation. Though women in the gym reproduced this dominant narrative throughout their interviews, internal contradictions and nuggets of resistance emerged. These nuggets of resistance create fractures in the dominant discourse, shining light into areas that can be explored further for resistance practices through sense-making, necessitating a language of resistance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2019

Auto Fem: Essays is a nonfiction essay collection revolving around one young woman’s family and their relationship to the motors that accelerate familial bonds. Each motor-related essay brings readers deeper into the admiration of speed and the environment that surrounds it. The essays span from the author's childhood into adulthood, revealing the different ways a woman is sexualized within these subcultures. This sexualization leads to internal battles for the female participant that result in sometimes toxic eating habits and a complicated body image. The author provides a sometimes brutal, sometimes funny, but always honest view. The essays collected here explore one woman's experience of being a woman within male-dominated spaces-- from table gambling in casinos to Harley Davidson motorcycle rallies. These essays explore over twenty years of one nuclear family's love for motors and each other.

A medical evaluation of physical impairment imposes the additional burden of “labeling” the patient with the condition. The binary nature of the normal versus abnormal label emphasizes difference and can lead to trauma. Understanding differences, however, can lead to the generation of new forms and thus, more sensitive differentiation and representation. Tension is created by exploring different bodily forms—a dialectic between form and essence. I am designing a space that visualizes and illuminates difference as a source of trauma and amplifying the tension by comparing figures that represent varying degrees of normalcy. This forms a critique of idealized form and creates a context for people unaffected by this type of trauma to reflect on possible realities outside of their assumptions of normality.

Obesity and eating disorders are pervasive concerns among young adult women, and profoundly impact physical and psychological functioning. Weight-related disorders are typically chronic conditions; their treatment is often complex and frequently ineffective. Moreover, Black and Latina women have disproportionately high rates of obesity, and experience rates of eating disorders comparable to those of their White peers; yet, they are less likely to be referred to appropriate treatment. Given the intractability of weight-related concerns and their detrimental consequences, attempts to prevent unhealthy eating attitudes and behaviors are essential. To date, few prevention programs have significantly reduced both obesity risk and eating disorder symptoms. The purpose of the current study was to develop and pilot an intervention designed to prevent obesity and eating disorders among young adult women (age 18-25). In the first phase of the study, focus groups were conducted with 30 young adult women to explore disparate racial and ethnic appearance ideals and assess cultural acceptability of the proposed intervention. Additionally, an innovative manualized intervention informed by the qualitative data and grounded in social psychological principles and dialectical behavior therapy was developed. In the second phase of the study, 29 young adult women were recruited to participate in the intervention. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires at pretest (baseline), posttest (8-weeks), and 4-week follow-up. Findings reveal vast differences in beauty standards among disparate racial/ethnic women and demonstrate the need to enhance the cultural sensitivity of current intervention approaches. Results suggest the feasibility and acceptability of a culturally sensitive prevention program intended to reduce the risk of both unhealthy weight gain and eating pathology.

Previous research has indicated an increasing trend toward elective cosmetic surgery to achieve a perceived ideal body image and meet psychological and social needs. However, there remains a gap in the literature regarding the number of procedures performed on a single patient, and the potential that patients may suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the number of cosmetic surgeries undergone, level of body dissatisfaction, level of dysmorphic concern, and preoccupation with appearance. Participants included 75 females and 55 males, ranging in age from 18 to 64 years. The majority of participants identified as Caucasian and resided in the United States. Most participants reported having two or three cosmetic surgeries. A multiple regression analysis was run to predict whether dysmorphic concern, body image concern, and/or BDD symptomology predict the number of cosmetic procedures undergone. The first significant finding was that body dissatisfaction, level of dysmorphic concern, and likelihood of BDD predict the number of cosmetic surgeries an individual chooses to undergo. The second significant finding was that the level of body image satisfaction-dissatisfaction as measured by the Body Image Ideal Questionnaire does predict the number of cosmetic procedures undergone. The results from this study provide support for the prerequisite of a psychological screening for cosmetic surgery and thus may contribute to positive social change for the cosmetic surgery community and its patients. Successful implementation of such a screening tool would contribute to social change, particularly for those candidates with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health concerns.

The food decisions, dietary patterns, physical activity, and weight-related convictions of African American mothers are affected by their self-perceptions and views of body weight. The gap in the literature regarding the impact of these perceptions on children's food choices, eating habits, and body image is significant. Using the health belief model as the theoretical foundation and a cross-sectional survey as the research design, this study assessed the potential relationship between mothers' and children's eating habits and whether mothers' perceptions of their children's body image were reliable indicators of childhood obesity. Eighty-six mothers provided demographic information and completed the Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ) and the Figure Rating Scale (FRS); 86 children completed the FRS. All 172 participants self-reported weight and height. No other measurements were taken. Logistic regression and correlation analysis were used to answer the research questions. Correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between the mothers' perceptions of their children's body image and the children's self-perceptions of their body image. The results of regression analyses indicated that the mothers' perceptions of their weight as children influenced food choices for their children as well as their children's self-perception of body image. Positive social change in the African American community may occur by having community and health care professionals offer awareness programs to African American mothers.

Millennials in retail account for a large portion of the U.S. workforce and have the highest number of body image modifications from tattoos, piercings, and/or gauges. Following Moustakas concept of perception, the purpose of this transcendental phenomenology study was to explore how Millennial-aged retail employees describe and experience leaders with body image modifications from tattoos, piercings, and/or gauges. Participants were sought from various retail locations and were required to be born between 1981 and 1996. Data were collected through interviews with 6 participants and the data were analyzed using Moustakas modification of the Van Kamm Method. The results showed that employees typically felt good about their experiences with their leaders, yet varied on how effective and personable their leaders were; however, employees did not ascribe any impact on leadership effectiveness to the body image modifications of their leaders. Implications of this result extends to an increased openness towards traits that make others different, theoretical changes that note visual cues are important for ideal leader categorization, and increased understanding of follower views in relation to leader-follower relationship development.

The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding of uncertainty in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS), which is a chronic illness involving curvature of the spine and is typically diagnosed in late childhood or early adolescence. The timing of most AIS diagnosis and its subsequent treatment occurs at a critical point developmentally and may place strain on adolescents with AIS and their parents. This dissertation includes two studies. The first study used Cash's (2011) cognitive-behavioral perspective on body image as the framework to assess whether brace treatment had a negative impact on body image appraisals in female adolescents participating in a clinical trial. Contrary to previous studies, this study found that brace treatment did not have a negative impact on female adolescents' body image and that poor body image did not result in brace treatment non-adherence. However, this study found significant correlations in adolescents with AIS between poorer body image and poorer quality-of-life. The second study used Uncertainty Management Theory as the framework for exploring adolescents' and parents' AIS-related uncertainties that were participating in online support groups. Results from this study suggest that adolescents with AIS and parents of a child with AIS are managing their uncertainties regarding the illness and its treatment however, the way they manage the uncertainty is different, in particular regarding appraisals of the uncertainties, whether they are seeking or avoiding information, and the types of social support that is being sought and provided. Parents of a child with AIS tended to seek information regarding the uncertainty surrounding the AIS condition, including information regarding doctors/hospitals and research, while adolescents tended to be participating in the online support groups for the purposes of seeking and providing support to other adolescents that have been or currently are in similar situations, such as wearing a brace. These findings are critical, because differences in uncertainty management behaviors between adolescents and parents, such as the ones that were found in the AIS-related online support group, could result in differences in understandings, concerns, preferences, and expectations regarding the illness and its treatments, which may result in family conflict, poor clinical health outcomes in adolescents and poor psychosocial outcomes in adolescents and in their parents. This study is significant in that it explored AIS-related uncertainty in two entirely different settings where theoretical applications are rare, in a clinical trial and in online support groups. The results from this dissertation suggest that Uncertainty Management Theory and Cash's (2011) cognitive-behavioral perspective on body image may be adapted for these contexts. The synthesis of the findings from across this dissertation suggests that the clinical and psychosocial health outcomes of adolescents with AIS and the psychosocial outcomes of their parents, may be improved through communication tools, such as adolescents, their parents, and providers working together through a treatment decision flow chart to elicit AIS-related current understandings, concerns, preferences, and expectation, which will result in shared decisions. Finally, as new technologies expands and are integrated into decisions regarding illness, findings from this dissertation can be used to improve health communication, support interventions, and policy development.