Social and family correlates of eating problems and muscle preoccupation in young adolescents

Abstract

This study examined the unique contribution of a number of social and familial factors to body change strategies and eating problems in youths. A sample of non-clinical adolescents aged 10 to 16 years (N = 405) completed a modified version of the Children's Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT) and questionnaires for measuring various social and familial factors that may play a role in the etiology of eating problems and muscle preoccupation. Regression analyses indicated that specific eating disorder-related factors (such as the encouragement of peers and parents to lose weight or to become more muscular) and more general factors (such as negative parental rearing behaviors and insecure attachment) made independent contributions to problem eating and muscle preoccupation in youths.

Introduction

Research has indicated that a considerable proportion of the youths report subjective feelings of dissatisfaction with their physical appearance (see for a review Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001a). Girls typically have thoughts about being thinner (e.g., Thomas, Ricciardelli, & Williams, 2000), whereas boys also want to be thin as well as more muscular (Ricciardelli, McGabe, & Banfield, 2000). It is clear that these culturally determined ideal body images give rise to feelings of body dissatisfaction (Stice, 2002), which may result in body change strategies that even can take the form of an eating disorder (Steiner & Lock, 1998), muscle dysmorphia (Cafri et al., 2005), or other health-risk behaviors such as the use of anabolic steroids (Irving, Wall, Neumark-Sztainer, & Story, 2002).

Various factors seem to be associated with children's body change strategies and eating problems (Muris, Meesters, Van de Blom, & Mayer, 2005; see for a review Littleton & Ollendick, 2003). One obvious factor is body mass index (BMI), which seems to be an important predictor of body dissatisfaction and in its wake body change strategies. It is clear that children and adolescents who are too fat or too thin, and hence deviate from the ideal standard, are more prone to become dissatisfied with their body and engage in dieting or strategies to develop their muscles (Holt & Ricciardelli, 2002, Neumark-Sztainer et al., 1999). To be more specific, in a study by McCabe and Ricciardelli (2003), boys and girls with a higher BMI were both found to be less satisfied with their weight and more likely to think about dieting as well as to actually engage in strategies to lose weight. In addition, a longitudinal study of body image and strategies to lose weight and increase muscles among 8–12-year-old children proved that BMI was a significant predictor of body image and these strategies (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2005a). Other variables that have been implied in the origins of body dissatisfaction and body change strategies include psychological factors such as self-esteem and negative affect (Holt & Ricciardelli, 2002, McCabe & Vincent, 2003, Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001a) and sociocultural factors such as perceived pressure from the media to have a thin (girls and boys) and muscular body (boys) (Cusamano & Thompson, 2000, McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003, Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001b). In a prospective study following adolescents over a 16-month period, McCabe and Ricciardelli (2005b) recently found that, among boys, messages from the fathers were most predictive of strategies to change the body, whereas girls were most strongly influenced by messages from mothers and best female friends.

A number of social and familial factors have also been identified that are thought to contribute to the development of children's body change strategies and eating problems (Littleton & Ollendick, 2003). For example, a number of studies have obtained evidence indicating that comments made by peers about body shape (Grigg, Bowman, & Redman, 1996) and encouragements of peers to either lose weight or to become more muscular (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2003) are associated with symptoms of disordered eating in adolescent boys and girls. Similar results have been obtained in research examining the effects of parents' encouragement of their children to change their body size and shape (McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2003). Besides these specific eating disorder-related influences, there are also more general social and familial factors that seem to be involved in the etiology of eating problems. For example, there is accumulating evidence demonstrating that insecure attachment patterns are associated with eating pathology (Sharpe et al., 1998). Note, in passing, that insecure attachment not only manifests itself in relationships with parents but also in contacts with peers (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). Further, some studies have found that negative parental rearing behaviors such as high levels of rejection and control and low levels of warmth are accompanied by higher levels of eating problems among youths (Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Hannan, Beuhring, & Resnick, 2000).

In most studies, social and familial factors have been studied in isolation, and so little is known about their relative contribution to body change strategies and eating problems in youths. Nevertheless, such a study would be informative as it is well conceivable that some social and familial factors are more important than others. For example, it may well be the case that specific eating disorder-related factors (such as the encouragement of peers and parents to lose weight or to become more muscular) are more relevant for understanding eating problems than more general factors such as insecure attachment and parental rearing behaviors. With this in mind, the present study was set up. A large sample of young adolescents (N = 405) completed a modified version of the Children's Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT; Maloney, McGuire, & Daniels, 1988) as a measure of problem attitudes and behaviors in relation to eating and muscles, as well as questionnaires for measuring various social and familial factors that may play a role in the etiology of eating problems, namely parent and peer encouragement to lose weight or to become more muscular, insecure attachment to parent and peers, and perceived parental rearing behaviors.