Adolescents with body image dissatisfaction experience more anxiety than their peers who are more satisfied with their body. This is problematic given that adolescents who experience these concerns have a greater likelihood of later developing other mental health disorders and have more disordered eating cognitions and behaviour. For this reason, I investigated how body image dissatisfaction, social anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation were related to one another. Participants included 527 adolescents (301 girls; aged 15 to 19 years; 83.1% White) who were accessed annually over 4 years (Grade 10 to one-year post high school) using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale-II, and validated questions to assess body image dissatisfaction. A developmental cascade model was used to examine direct and indirect effects between the study variables. Results indicated two significant indirect paths; body image dissatisfaction to social anxiety via fear of negative evaluation and body image dissatisfaction to fear of negative evaluation via social anxiety. Direct effects included a reciprocal positive association between body image dissatisfaction and social anxiety in mid-adolescence and a reciprocal positive association between social anxiety and fear of negative evaluation across adolescence. Lastly, there was a positive association from body image dissatisfaction to fear of negative evaluation across adolescence. These results suggest that adolescents with low body image dissatisfaction are likely to experience greater fear and anxiety regarding social interaction. This study emphasizes the need to target adolescents with body image intervention programs to reduce the experience of psychopathology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/40333 |
| Date | 06 April 2020 |
| Creators | Gerada, Ashley |
| Contributors | Vaillancourt, Tracy |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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