Peer influences on body dissatisfaction and dieting

  Aim. This study aimed to explore the role of peer influences in the development of body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness in young girls. Method. A sample of 81 girls (aged 5–8 years) were recruited from the first 3 years of formal schooling. Girls were individually interviewed. Body dissatisfaction was assessed by means of figure rating preferences, and dieting awareness by responses to a brief scenario. A number of sources of peer influence were also assessed. Results. Year 2 girls were found to display significantly greater body dissatisfaction than younger girls. All girls, irrespective of age, preferred a similar thin ideal figure. Year level constituted the only significant predictor of dieting awareness, with older girls demonstrating a greater understanding of dieting than younger girls. Importantly, girls’ perception of their peers’ body dissatisfaction emerged as the strongest predictor of their own level of body dissatisfaction. Conclusions. Body dissatisfaction in girls first emerges during the junior primary school years, between ages 5 and 7 years, and appears to be a function of shared peer norms for thinness. Body dissatisfaction, in particular a desire to be thinner, has become so pervasive and common an experience for women in contemporary society as to have been termed ‘a normative discontent’ (Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1985). Such body dissatisfaction carries a number of important negative consequences for women, in terms of excessive dieting (Stice, Mazotti, Krebs, & Martin, 1998) and lowered selfesteem (Tiggemann, 1997), and has emerged as the most consistent predictor of disordered eating (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999). Although research originally targeted adolescence as the likely time for the emergence of body dissatisfaction, there is now growing consensus that it begins considerably earlier in childhood. Clear evidence has accumulated that a substantial number of pre-adolescent girls (as young as 7–8 years old) are dissatisfied with their bodies and wish to be thinner (Collins, 1991; Hill & Pallin, 1998; Konstanski & Gullone, 1999; Maloney, McGuire, Daniels, & Specker, 1989; Rolland, Farnill, & Griffiths, 1997; * Correspondence should be addressed to Hayley Dohnt, School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia (e-mail: [email protected]). The British Psychological Society 103 British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2005), 23, 103–116 q 2005 The British Psychological Society www.bpsjournals.co.uk DOI:10.1348/026151004X20658 Thelen & Cormier, 1995; Thompson, Corwin, & Sargent, 1997; Tiggemann & Pennington, 1990; Tiggemann & Wilson-Barrett, 1998; Wood, Becker, & Thompson, 1996). Many studies also identify the existence of dieting-like behaviours in this age group (Hill, Oliver, & Rogers, 1992; Hill & Pallin, 1998; Maloney, McGuire, & Daniels, 1998; Schur, Sanders, & Steiner, 2000). Importantly, such body dissatisfaction among children has now been implicated as a precursor for lower self-esteem, diminished psychological well-being, and the development of later eating disorders (for reviews, see Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001; Smolak & Levine, 2001). As yet, little research has focused on children younger than 7 years of age. Hendy, Gustitus, and Leitzel-Schwalm (2001) found little evidence of body dissatisfaction in their sample of preschool children (mean age of 4 years 6 months). Nor did Lowes and Tiggemann (2003) find body dissatisfaction in their sample of 5-year-old girls. Similarly, Davison, Markey, and Birch (2000) reported that ‘less than one in ten’ of their 5-year-old girls were dissatisfied with their bodies. In contrast, Flannery-Schroeder and Chrisler (1996) reported that a substantial 36.4% of their sample of 6- to 7-year-old girls reported that they wished they were thinner. Lowes and Tiggemann (2003) also found that both 6- and 7-year-old girls rated their ideal figure as significantly thinner than their current figure and they concluded that body dissatisfaction emerges at around age 6. Further, both studies demonstrated that a substantial number of girls were well aware of the concept of dieting and able to suggest restrictive eating practices as the means to achieve the ideal shape, and that levels of dieting awareness increased with age. Collectively, these early findings suggest that the desire for thinness emerges among girls somewhere between 5 and 7 years of age. Thus the first aim of the present study was to further examine systematically the development of body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness in junior primary school girls across this age range. The identification of the specific sociocultural factors which play a causal role in the development of body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness at such a young age has particular social urgency. The general sociocultural model (Thompson et al., 1999) maintains that current societal standards of beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted and internalized by most women. This thin ideal is transmitted and reinforced by a number of different social agents, including family, peers and the mass media. Not surprisingly, parental influences have received the most research attention as the most salient source of information for young children (Smolak & Levine, 2001). A number of studies have confirmed that maternal comments and modelling do influence pre-adolescent girls’ attitudes concerning weight and shape (e.g. Hill & Pallin, 1998; Smolak, Levine, & Schermer, 1999; Thelen & Cormier, 1995). However, the major life event which occurs over the 5–7 year age range, when body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness appear to first develop, is the commencement of schooling. For many young children, going to school may represent the first time they become exposed to substantial influence from outside the family home, in particular, to influence from their peers. Thus peer influence, which has been investigated extensively for adolescents but has implicitly been assumed as more-or-less irrelevant for young children, may in fact be particularly salient for this age group. As children enter school, greater time is spent in peer interaction and communication, and hence peers assume a greater importance in children’s lives (Hartup, 1983; Herbert, 1991). Along with increasing cognitive competence, increased exposure to peers in the classroom provides the opportunity for increasing levels of social comparison over the early years of schooling (Ruble, 1994). Findings with older children and adolescents confirm that 104 Hayley K. Dohnt and Marika Tiggemann social comparison on the basis of appearance is related to body dissatisfaction (e.g. VanderWal & Thelen, 2000). There are a number of potential mechanisms of peer influence. Studies with adolescent girls have demonstrated the existence of shared group norms for bodyimage concerns, such that girls’ levels of body dissatisfaction and dieting are related to those of their peers (Lieberman, Gauvin, Bukowski, & White, 2001; Paxton, Schutz, Wertheim, & Muir, 1999). These studies have also linked level of peer acceptance to body dissatisfaction and dieting behaviours (Lieberman et al., 2001; Paxton et al., 1999), with girls higher in peer acceptance engaging in more discussions about body shape and subject to more peer influence. Peer discussions themselves have been linked to body dissatisfaction and dieting behaviours (Levine, Smolak, Moodey, Shuman, & Hessen, 1994; Vincent & McCabe, 2000). Among preadolescent girls, teasing has been found to be a consistent predictor of body-image concerns (Fabian & Thompson, 1989; Oliver & Thelen, 1996; VanderWal & Thelen, 2000), as has girls’ belief that being thin would make them more liked by their peers (Oliver & Thelen, 1996; Taylor et al., 1998). As yet, however, research has failed to examine peer influences for younger children. Therefore the present study sought to explore the role of peer influences in the development of body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness among girls in their first 3 years of formal schooling, and thus aged between 5 and 7 years. In particular, perceived peer norms, perceived peer acceptance, peer discussion, as well as awareness of teasing and likeability on the basis of body shape, were examined as indicators of peer influence. Method Participants The participants were 81 girls attending two private single-sex girls’ schools in Adelaide, South Australia. The majority of students attending these schools (.90%) are Caucasian and from middle- to upper-class families. Girls were recruited from the first 3 years of school: Reception (N ¼ 28, mean age ¼ 5.18 years, SD ¼ 0:39), Year 1 (N ¼ 25, mean age ¼ 6.12 years, SD ¼ 0:33) and Year 2 (N ¼ 28, mean age ¼ 7.11 years, SD ¼ 0:42). Girls’ body mass index (BMI) ranged from 11.87 to 25.79, with an average BMI of 15.89 (SD ¼ 2:15). Of this sample, 11 girls (14%) could be classified as overweight and three (4%) obese, according to age-related international cut-off points for BMI (Cole, Bellizzi, Flegal, & Dietz, 2000). These figures are similar to a set of Australia norms for 7- to 15-year-old girls (15.85% overweight and 5.35% obese) using the same international cut-off points (Magarey, Daniels, & Boulton, 2001). Measures Children were individually interviewed. As weight and shape constitute potentially sensitive issues, all questions were carefully designed to be as innocuous as possible. Thus no explicit reference was made to the girl’s weight or shape or how she felt about this, and questions targeted awareness, rather than actual experience, of teasing and likeability on the basis of body shape. A yes/no response format was adopted for most questions, with the explicit provision of an ‘I don’t know’ response option as suggested by Huon, Godden, and Brown (1997). Pilot testing of two girls (aged 5 and 7 years) revealed no particular difficulties. Peer influences on body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness 105 Body dissatisfaction Following Lowes and Tiggemann (2003), body dissatisfaction was assessed using the girls’ version of the Children’s Figure Rating Scale (Tiggemann & Wilson-Barrett, 1998) presented on A3-size brightly coloured laminated card. This measure was chosen for this age group, as it does not require any sophisticated verbal ability, with the children simply able to point to the chosen figure. As a consequence, these figure-rating scales have become one of the most commonly used measures with children and adolescents (Gardner, 2001). Here the scale consisted of nine young female silhouette drawings, ranging from 1 (very thin) to 9 (very fat). Girls were asked to point to ‘the girl who looks most like you’ (current), and then to the girl they ‘would most like to look like’ (ideal). Body dissatisfaction was calculated as the difference between these figure ratings (current–ideal). Thus, a score of zero indicates body satisfaction; a negative score indicates body dissatisfaction in the direction of desiring a larger figure; and a positive score indicates body dissatisfaction in the direction of desiring a thinner figure. Dieting awareness Dieting awareness was assessed using a slight modification of the technique employed by Lowes and Tiggemann (2003). After being asked the meaning of the word ‘holiday’ as a warm-up, girls were asked whether they knew what a diet was, followed by two questions: (a) ‘What is a diet?’ and (b) ‘Why do you think people go on a diet?’ The response for question (a) was scored: 0 if the girl gave an irrelevant answer or did not know what a ‘diet’ was; 1 if the child gave an answer that did not specifically refer to dietary restraint; or 2 if the child specified restrictive eating practices. Similarly question (b) was scored: 0 if the child had no idea why people might go on a diet; 1 if the response was only peripherally related to dieting behaviours (e.g. to get healthy); or 2 if they referred to physical appearance or previous eating habits (e.g. to lose weight). A total score for definition of the word ‘diet’ was obtained by summing scores for questions (a) and (b). Thus scores ranged from 0 to 4. Internal reliability in the current sample was moderately high (Cronbach’s a ¼ :89). It is possible that children may not be able to define the word ‘diet’, yet are able to understand the notion of dieting (Lowes & Tiggemann, 2003). Thus, understanding of the concept (as opposed to definition) of dieting as a means to lose weight was then assessed through a small story about a fictional character ‘Anne’, inspired by Hill and Pallin’s (1998) ‘Mary-Jane’. In the present study girls were shown an A4-size picture of ‘Anne’ (Figure 5 on the Children’s Figure Rating Scale) and informed, ‘This is what Anne looked like a year ago’. They were then presented with a larger figure (Figure 8, the second-to-largest figure) and told, ‘This is what she looks like now’. The girls were then asked: (a) ‘Why do you think this happened?’; (b) ‘Although Anne looks fine like this (Figure 8), if she wanted to look like this (Figure 5) again, what could she do?’; and (c) ‘What would you do if the same thing happened to you?’. Each question was scored: 0 if the child did not know; 1 if they referred to exercise or some other activity; or 2 if they specifically referred to eating as the reason for Anne’s weight gain and recommended some form of dietary restraint (e.g. ‘go on a diet’). Where more than one response was provided, scoring was based on the presence of eating behaviour as a means to lose weight. A total score (0–6) for conceptual awareness of dieting was calculated by summing the scores for the three questions. Internal reliability for this measure was moderately high (Cronbach’s a ¼ :84). 106 Hayley K. Dohnt and Marika Tiggemann Perceived peers’ body dissatisfaction Girls’ perception of the body dissatisfaction of their peers was measured using the enlarged and laminated Children’s Figure Rating Scale (Tiggemann & Pennington, 1990). Girls were asked to name one friend in their class. They were then asked, ‘Can you point to the girl who looks like your friend ______?’ (friend current), and also ‘Which girl do you think your friend _____ would like to look like?’ (friend ideal). Girls were then asked, ‘Which girl do you think most of the girls in your class look like?’ (peer current); and ‘Which girl do you think most of the girls in your class would like to look like?’ (peer ideal). As there was a significant positive correlation (r ¼ :26, p , :05) between friend and peer body dissatisfaction (current–ideal), they were averaged to provide a measure of girls’ perceptions of their peers’ body dissatisfaction. Awareness of teasing Girls’ awareness of teasing on the basis of weight was assessed using a similar methodology to that used to measure dieting awareness. Girls were shown Figure 5 (in a blue dress) and informed, ‘Remember, this is what Anne looked like a year ago’. They were then shown Figure 8 (in a pink dress) and asked, ‘Since then, she has gone to a new school. This is what she looks like now. What do you think the children at Anne’s “new school” would say to her?’ Responses were scored: 0 if the child did not know, or responded with a positive comment; 1 if the response was negative, but did not refer specifically to Anne’s weight; or 2 for a specific negative comment about Anne’s weight (e.g. ‘you are fat!’). The issues of different schools and different coloured dresses were introduced to decrease demand characteristics that children comment on Anne’s weight. Awareness of likeability Awareness of likeability on the basis of weight was assessed using the same scenario. Girls were asked, ‘Do you think children at her new school (Figure 8) would play with Anne?’ (‘Yes’ ¼ 0, ‘I don’t know’/‘Maybe’ ¼ 1, ‘No’ ¼ 2); and ‘Do you think that other children would play with Anne more when she was at her old school (Figure 5), or while she is at her new school (Figure 8), or would they play with Anne the same amount?’ (‘New school’ ¼ 0, ‘Same’ ¼ 1, ‘Old school’ ¼ 2). Scores for the two items were summed to produce a total score for likeability ranging from 0 to 4. Given that there were only two items, internal reliability was considered adequate (Cronbach’s a ¼ :63). Peer discussion To examine peer discussion about body shapes the girls were shown a picture of a group of girls and informed, ‘See these girls. They are talking with each other about the way their bodies look. Do you ever talk about the way your bodies look with your friends?’ (‘Yes’/‘No’). Peer acceptance Girls’ perceived peer acceptance was measured by the Peer Acceptance subscale of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence/Social Acceptance, designed for use with children 7 years and younger (Harter & Pike, 1984). The Peer Acceptance scale consists Peer influences on body dissatisfaction and dieting awareness 107 of six items each depicting two scenarios, for example, ‘This girl has l