Elsevier

Body Image

Volume 6, Issue 3, June 2009, Pages 178-185
Body Image

Emerging adults’ perceptions of messages about physical appearance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2009.02.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Emerging adults receive messages about physical appearance from a range of sources, but few studies have examined the content of these messages. Undergraduates (N = 154) who identified as African American, Latino American, and European American answered 4 open-ended questions about messages they perceived about physical appearance from family, peers, school, and media. Raters coded responses for content and affect. The most common messages perceived were the importance/non-importance of appearance, positive comments about appearance, and the link between attractiveness and success. The perception of these messages frequently differed by gender and source, but rarely by ethnicity. Women perceived more frequent and more negative messages than did men. Individuals perceived the media as transmitting more negative messages and the family more healthful and positive ones.

Introduction

Whether they are watching reality television, attending fraternity parties, or sitting with their parents over winter break, emerging adults receive powerful messages about physical appearance. These messages undoubtedly play a critical role in shaping their body image. Much research to date has focused on the processes by which sources convey information about appearance and in understanding whether this communication is linked to body image. Although valuable in its own right, this work does not address a more basic yet important question: what are the actual messages emerging adults perceive? The current study contributes to the existing literature by providing a qualitative perspective on the content of these messages. It is well-established that sociocultural sources are important, but we have little knowledge about the specific messages individuals perceive from them, which of these messages matter most, and whether all messages are negative. By using qualitative methods, we may capture messages that are both positive and negative. The goal of the current study was for college students to describe the messages they received about physical appearance from family, peers, school, and media.

Messages about physical appearance may be best captured by using open-ended methods. Prior work is largely based on close-ended, standardized measures that often reveal little about the content of messages perceived. The prior work that has used open-ended methods to examine sociocultural influences on body image (e.g., Parker et al., 1995, Wertheim et al., 1997) mostly focuses on female adolescents.

Also, much previous work centers on three socialization agents–parents, peers, and media (Smolak, 2004). In this study, we include a fourth socialization agent–school. Extant literature suggests that school is a significant context for learning about physical appearance (Eisenberg et al., 2005, Evans et al., 2004).

The present study also contributes to the literature by focusing on multiethnic emerging adults. Much past work on ethnic differences in body image compares African American and European American girls/women (e.g., Parker et al., 1995, Schooler et al., 2004). We also included men and Latino Americans in this study because of the cultural shift toward a lean and muscular ideal for men (Olivardia, 2002), and the little existing research on body image in Latino Americans. We know of no work on physical appearance messages that includes open-ended data from ethnic minority men, and thus their unique perspective is missing in the literature.

Also important is our focus on emerging adults. Emerging adulthood is the period of development from ages 18 to 25, and involves exploration in multiple domains, including identity (Arnett, 2000). Studies show high rates of body dissatisfaction among female undergraduates (Gillen & Lefkowitz, 2006), and an increase in women's disordered eating behavior during college (Delinsky & Wilson, 2008). Body concerns are not limited to women; recent work indicates that 65% of male undergraduates are dissatisfied with their bodies, and over 90% wish they were more muscular (Frederick, Buchanan, et al., 2007; Gillen & Lefkowitz).

The family serves as an important context for learning about physical appearance beginning at birth. Within the family, individuals develop eating habits and values, learn cultural norms for physical appearance, and receive feedback about their looks (Birch, 1990, Ogle and Damhorst, 2003, Schwartz et al., 1999). Parental communication regarding appearance is fairly common, including messages about dieting (Fulkerson, McGuire, Neumark-Sztainer, French, & Perry, 2002) and physical appearance (Schwartz et al., 1999). Daughters tend to perceive more feedback about their appearance, more weight-related teasing, and more pressure to lose weight than do sons (Ata, Ludden, & Lally, 2007; Schwartz et al.).

Another frequently examined context is peers. Female adolescents report more pressure to lose weight from friends and family than do their male counterparts (Ata et al., 2007). Thus, some girls and young women engage in “fat talk” with their female peers, a style of conversation in which a girl claims that she is fat and another reassures her that she is not (Nichter and Vuckovic, 1994, Wertheim et al., 1997). Undergraduates see this communication style as normative among college women (Britton, Martz, Bazzini, Curtin, & LeaShomb, 2006). Although there is less research on boys and men, existing studies show that peers are an important source of influence (Ata et al.; Sheets & Ajmere, 2005).

The school context has received less attention, but some argue that schools, as institutions that promote standards of perfection and performance, contribute to existing cultural pressures and therefore may help give rise to eating disorders (Evans et al., 2004). Other work suggests that schools may develop their own “culture” surrounding weight loss techniques (Eisenberg et al., 2005). Teachers, aware of the potential for body image and eating problems among students, have an interest in incorporating preventive material into their lesson plans (Piran, 2004). Some schools have already taken these steps by incorporating school-level prevention programs addressing body image issues (see Smolak, Harris, Levine, & Shisslak, 2001). In spite of these efforts, the specific messages students perceive about appearance from their school are not clear.

The socialization agent that has received the most attention is the media. Specifically, the media portray a thin ideal that is unrealistic for most women (J.K. Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999). Many female adolescents report that images of thin women shape their ideas about thinness and losing weight (Field et al., 1999, Wertheim et al., 1997). In recent years, the media has also portrayed a lean and muscular ideal for boys and men (Olivardia, 2002). Although there is increasing emphasis placed on boys’ and men's appearance by the media, currently, their female peers report more appearance-related pressure from the media (Ata et al., 2007).

Much of the literature focuses on European American girls and women, leaving little knowledge of messages perceived by men and ethnic minority individuals. Some research shows that men and women are similarly dissatisfied with their bodies (Stanford & McCabe, 2002). Other work shows that women are unhappier with their appearance and bodies than men (Frederick et al., 2007b, Gillen and Lefkowitz, 2006). Findings are more consistent on appearance orientation/surveillance, in that women report being more concerned with and invested in their looks, and engage in more surveillance of their appearance than do men (Frederick, Forbes, et al.; Gillen & Lefkowitz). Thus, the fact that women are more oriented toward, and possibly more dissatisfied with, their looks suggests that women may perceive a greater number of as well as more negative messages about appearance, than men.

In terms of ethnic differences, African Americans have more positive attitudes about their appearance than do European Americans and Latino Americans (Gillen and Lefkowitz, 2006, Miller et al., 2000). These differences may be attributed to more flexible criteria for beauty, and a preference for larger body size in African Americans (Markey, 2004, Parker et al., 1995). Thus, African Americans may perceive fewer and more positive messages about appearance from their families, peers, and media than European Americans and Latino Americans. Some studies that compare African Americans and European Americans support this idea. African American adolescent girls perceive less weight and dieting concern from family and friends and less competition and jealousy regarding appearance among friends than do their European American counterparts (Parker et al.; S.H. Thompson, Corwin, Rogan, & Sargent, 1999). In terms of media, one study found that European American women who viewed more mainstream television had poorer body image, whereas African American women who viewed more African American-oriented television had more positive body image (Schooler et al., 2004). School, on the other hand, is a context likely to be shared among all students, suggesting that messages perceived from this source may differ little across ethnic groups.

In sum, the current study is unique because of its use of open-ended methods, inclusion of four socialization agents, and focus on multiethnic male and female emerging adults. Our goal is to answer the following questions:

  • 1.

    What messages do emerging adults perceive from family, peers, school, and media about physical appearance? Are there differences by source, gender, and ethnicity in the perception of these messages?

  • 2.

    To what extent are messages about physical appearance positive and negative? Are there differences by source, gender, and ethnicity in the positivity and negativity of messages?

Section snippets

Participants and procedure

Data come from the third time point of a longitudinal study of students from a university in the northeast USA. Time 1 took place during students’ first semester at college, Time 2 during their second semester, and Time 3 during their third semester (Fall, 2003). At Time 1 we contacted students who met our age criteria (ages 17–19), including all African American and Latino American students, and a randomly chosen 9% of European American students. Of these 839 students, 52% agreed to

Preliminary analyses

We calculated the proportion of participants who mentioned each major theme/subtheme in their response (Table 1). If the average proportion across all four sources was 5% or less, we dropped the category from further analyses because it is difficult to draw conclusions based on a small proportion of participants. Also, in cases where the average kappa across coders was .70 or less, we excluded it from subsequent analyses. These criteria resulted in a total of 5 major themes and 4 subthemes for

Discussion

In the current study, we asked college students to describe the messages they perceived about physical appearance from four sources—family, peers, school, and media. All of these sources appear to be critical in socializing students about appearance, and the messages perceived from them, as a whole, were not entirely positive in tone. The messages participants mentioned most frequently related to the importance or non-importance of appearance, positive comments about their looks, and the link

Limitations, implications, and conclusion

This study has several limitations. One is that the open-ended questions did not ask individuals to distinguish messages from different individuals within a single source. It is possible that emerging adults perceive different messages about appearance from same-sex than from opposite-sex peers, and from parents than from siblings. Further, European American women developed the coding scheme and rated the responses. These women may interpret messages about appearance differently than men or

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Jill Boelter, Tanya Boone, Graciela Espinosa-Hernandez, Amanda Gottschall, Stephanie Hensen, Shelley Hosterman, Eric Loken, Christen Mannino, Elizabeth Mitchell, Kristie Patton, Deena Sadiky, Cindy Shearer, and Laura Whitekettle for their help with study design, data scoring and entering, data cleaning, coding, and statistical analyses. We also thank Sara Vasilenko for her thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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    Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2005 and 2007 Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA (2005), and Boston, MA (2007). This research was supported by grant R01 HD 41720 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Eva S. Lefkowitz, and the Joachim Wohlwill Endowment in Human Development and Family Studies to Meghan M. Gillen.

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