Predicting and Improving Body Satisfaction of Asian Women Through Body Type Exposure
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Authors
Ali, Nida
Issue Date
2024-04-16
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Mental Health--Body dissatisfaction , Psychology--Applied Psychology , Social sciences--Psychology
Alternative Title
Abstract
Body dissatisfaction is increasing for women around the world especially in the Asian culture as more women are internalizing the thin ideal (Holmqvist & Frisén, 2010). The influences from peers, family, and media highlighted in the Tripartite Influence Model (Thompson et al., 1999) and misperception of men’s preferences of women’s bodies (Stojcic et al., 2020) contribute to Asian women’s body dissatisfaction, but which of these factors has the strongest association with body dissatisfaction remains unclear. Limited research also exists on interventions to address body dissatisfaction for Asian women. The current study replicated and extended Aniulis et al.’s (2021) research intervention to improve women’s body satisfaction by examining the effect of exposing Asian women to body arrays increasing in BMI on their preferred body and body dissatisfaction. The current study also analyzed which previously studied factor of body image (i.e., peers, family, media, and misperception of men’s preferences) most strongly predicts body dissatisfaction. One hundred and twenty Asian women from the United Kingdom were recruited through Prolific to complete body dissatisfaction measures before and after exposure to ninety body arrays. The average BMI preference and body satisfaction of participants increased as the level of body arrays they were exposed to increased. Media had the strongest influence on body dissatisfaction of Asian women in comparison to peers, family, and misperception of men’s preferences. Based on the significant results of the
study, exposure to diverse body types can be used as a brief clinical intervention for Asian women to help improve their body image.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Washburn University