Young Girls’ Body Image, the Media and

Parental Influence

Amanda Collins

Dr. Jennifer Tickle, PhD

Department of Psychology

St. Mary’s College of Maryland

Objectives

body image: “one’s attitudinal dispositions toward the physical self” (Cash, 2002)

the influences on the body image of young girls

Children and Media

Harrison & Hefner (2006) Television viewing stronger than other media

Harrison (2000) Two groups of girls, one watched television other

was control after viewing television, girls indicated a higher

current body size

Mothers and Daughters

modeling behavior is very strong between young girls and their mothers when it comes to body satisfaction

Mothers with high self esteem have been correlated to have daughters with high self esteem (Hahn-Smith, & Smith, 2001).

Mothers body image influence is much stronger for girls than boys (Smolak, Levine, & Schermer, 1999).

Self Esteem

Girls between the ages of 5 and 8, who watched television that was determined to have an appearance emphasis, were less satisfied with their overall appearance and had a lower self esteem (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006).

Current Study

Body image in young girls

Media effects

Parental Influence

Hypotheses

Young girls who watch more television will have a more negative body satisfaction.

Girls with body conscious mothers will have a

more negative body satisfaction.

A negative body image will correlate with a lower self esteem.

Participants Recruitment

N= 40 (20 Mothers, 20 daughters)

Mothers range = 31- 64 M = 43.65 SD = 6.75

Girls range = 10 -16 M =13.75 SD = 2.22

Body Esteem Scale

Franzoi & Sheilds, 1984 Specific body parts

scale of 1 to 5 (1 indicates strong negative

feelings and 5 indicates strong positive feelings)

Subscales

Alterations for children

State Self Esteem Scale (SSES)

Heatherton & Polivy, 1991

20 items

performance, social, and appearance self-esteem

5-point scale (1 indicates never and 5 indicates

always).

Child modifications

Pictorial Body Image Scale.

Stunkard, Sorenson & Schlulsinger, 1983 Mothers only 9 figure drawings of each gender ranging from

very thin to very heavy (1-9)

Children’s Figure Rating scale.

Tiggemann & Wilson- Barrett, 1998 Girls 9 figure drawings ranging from very thin to very

heavy (1-9)

Media

Data was collected on television viewing for the girls

Favorite television shows

What they watch yesterday

Channels they most watched

The data was coded as promoting thin ideal media or not promoting thin ideal

Results No significance between media and body esteem

girl’s body esteem and the body esteem of their mothers, not significant.

There was a positive correlation found between the child’s self esteem and the child’s body esteem, r(20)= .527, p = .017

positive correlation between the mother’s self esteem and the mother’s body esteem, r(18)= .547, p = .019.

Not predicted results

Positive Correlation between income and healthy eating

Racial Difference In African American participants there was a

positive correlation between self esteem of the mother and self esteem of the daughter

Research does suggest racial difference

Relevance to Research

Did not support thin-ideal television will correlate with lower body esteem

Did not support the body esteem of the mother impacting the body esteem of the child

Did support correlation between self esteem and body esteem

Limitations

Not enough participants

Recruitment of participants; not random

No pre-testing of media

Conclusion

Understanding what effects body image of young girls

Two major influences Media Parents/ Mothers

Future Which is more important, media or mothers? Race differences