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Gender Differences in the Relationship of Puberty with Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms: Do Body Perceptions Matter?

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Abstract

This study explored how pubertal status is related to depressive symptoms among adolescent boys and girls and whether body perceptions explained this relationship. This study is based on a national random US sample of adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (9,011 girls and 8,781 boys). Results showed that boys and girls responded differently to puberty. During the transition to puberty boys had higher depressive symptoms than post-pubertal boys, due to perceptions that they were not as physically large and developed as their peers. Pre-pubertal and post-pubertal boys did not significantly differ on depressive symptoms. Post-pubertal girls had higher depressive symptoms than pre-pubertal girls, due to perceptions that they were overweight and more physically developed than their peers.

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Acknowledgement

I thank K. Jill Kiecolt for her helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. This research is based on data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (addhealth@unc.edu).

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  1. Department of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 560 McBryde Hall (0137), Blacksburg, VA, 24061-0137, USA

    Anastasia S. Vogt Yuan

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Vogt Yuan, A.S. Gender Differences in the Relationship of Puberty with Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms: Do Body Perceptions Matter?. Sex Roles 57, 69–80 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9212-6

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