Original articleDoes Body Satisfaction Matter? Five-year Longitudinal Associations between Body Satisfaction and Health Behaviors in Adolescent Females and Males
Section snippets
Study design and population
Project EAT-II is a longitudinal, follow-up study of Project EAT-I, a study of the socio-environmental, personal, and behavioral determinants of dietary intake and weight status in adolescents [1], [20], [21], [22]. In Project EAT-I, 4746 junior and senior high school students in 31 Minnesota schools completed in-class surveys and anthropometric measures during the 1998–1999 academic year. Project EAT-II aimed to re-survey all original participants by mail to examine changes in their eating
Prevalence of Time 1 body satisfaction and Time 2 health behaviors
Mean body satisfaction scores at Time 1 are shown in Table 1. Among females, the distribution of body satisfaction based upon quartiles in the total EAT-II sample was as follows: low (33.8%, n = 444), low-middle (25.6%, n = 335), high-middle (22.2%, n = 291), and high (18.4%, n = 241). Among males, the distribution by quartiles was as follows: low (23.7%, n = 312), low-middle (25.9%, n = 340), high-middle (24.1%, n = 316), and high (26.3%, n = 344). At Time 2, high percentages of respondents,
Discussion
The current study examined five-year longitudinal associations between body satisfaction and an array of health-related behaviors among adolescents in order to address the question, “Does body satisfaction matter?” Our findings indicate that lower levels of body satisfaction are associated with more health-compromising behaviors, such as unhealthy weight control behaviors and binge eating, and fewer health-promoting behaviors, such as physical activity. Having a lower level of body satisfaction
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by Grant R40 MC 00319 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services.
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