Elsevier

Body Image

Volume 10, Issue 4, September 2013, Pages 501-508
Body Image

Internalization of U.S. female beauty standards as a mediator of the relationship between Mexican American women's acculturation and body dissatisfaction

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.05.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Composite and global evaluations captured unique dimensions of body dissatisfaction.

  • Internalization mediated the acculturation–body dissatisfaction relationship.

  • Adopting Mexican culture was unrelated to internalizing U.S. beauty standards.

  • Adopting Mexican culture was unrelated to body dissatisfaction.

Abstract

The relationships among acculturation, internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of female beauty, and body dissatisfaction were examined in a sample of 211 Mexican American college women. Structural equation modeling was used to identify the paths among these three factors. Results demonstrated that there are two distinct types of body dissatisfaction: global evaluations and composite site-specific evaluations. The relationships between acculturation toward dominant U.S. culture and both types of body dissatisfaction were found to be fully mediated by internalization of U.S. standards of female beauty. There were no relationships between Mexican orientation and any of the study variables. The results from this study imply that it is important for therapists working with Mexican American female clients to assess the client's level of acculturation, examine the cultural (U.S. and Mexican) messages the client receives, and explore how these messages impact her body image.

Introduction

Body dissatisfaction has been identified as an antecedent to disordered eating behaviors (Stice, 2002) and linked to negative mental and behavioral outcomes such as poor self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse (Choate, 2005, Nieri et al., 2005). Researchers have noted that body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors were originally conceptualized as issues of concern for predominantly Caucasian, middle-class, female populations (Wildes, Emery, & Simons, 2001). However, there is growing evidence that Latinos also experience body dissatisfaction and disordered eating (Grabe & Hyde, 2006). The primary purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how Mexican American women experience body dissatisfaction. We examined how acculturation to dominant U.S. culture and internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of female beauty were related to body dissatisfaction among Mexican American college students living in the U.S. Specifically, we assessed whether internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of beauty mediated the relationship between acculturation and body dissatisfaction.

Body dissatisfaction, an attitudinal component of body image, has been commonly conceptualized as the negatively evaluated discrepancy between people's perceived physical appearance and their ideal physical appearance (Gardner, 2002). Body image is one dimension of a person's overall self-concept. Given that one's self-concept is strongly influenced by the culture in which one lives (Markus and Wurf, 1987, McCann, 1992), body dissatisfaction must also be guided by culture and in the present study the juxtaposition of two cultures, or acculturation. Originally defined by Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits (1936, p. 149) and adopted by subsequent researchers (Berry, 1980, Cuellar et al., 1995), “acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups.” In the acculturation process, individuals may experience a change in their customs, attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, lifestyle, language usage, habits, and values as a result of contact and interaction with another culture (Graves, 1967). According to current theory, acculturation does not occur strictly along a unilinear continuum; instead, movement toward the host society and retention of one's original culture are two independent dimensions (Berry, 1980). Today, it is generally held that in the acculturation process, an individual can adopt or reject aspects of the dominant/host culture and maintain or abandon cultural beliefs and practices of his or her original culture (Cuellar et al., 1995). This conceptualization allows for an individual to simultaneously adopt aspects of both the dominant/host and original cultures (Berry, 1980).

Because of this conceptualization, both the relationship between U.S. culture and body dissatisfaction and the relationship between Mexican culture and body dissatisfaction should be examined. There is very little research that specifically assesses the relationship between endorsing Mexican culture and body dissatisfaction among Mexican Americans. Of the research that exists, there appears to be a negative relationship (Bettendorf & Fischer, 2009). One possible explanation for this relationship is that Mexican cultural values, which emphasize collectivism and interconnectedness (Santiago-Rivera, Arredondo, & Gallardo-Cooper, 2002), place less value on a woman's body as the primary determinant of her worth (Castillo & Cano, 2007). In collectivistic cultures, what is valued is not the individual self (including one's body) but rather the relationships of the person to others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). More research is needed that examines the relationship between body dissatisfaction and endorsement of Mexican culture among Mexican Americans.

Research exploring acculturation to dominant U.S. culture and body dissatisfaction among Mexican American samples has yielded mixed results. Some scholars have suggested that acculturation to U.S. culture and body dissatisfaction were unrelated (Blow et al., 2010, Gowen et al., 1999, Joiner and Kashubeck, 1996, Lester and Petrie, 1995, Perez et al., 2002, Warren et al., 2010), while others have found a negative relationship (Nieri et al., 2005). Still other scholars have found that acculturation to U.S. culture increased the likelihood of body dissatisfaction among Mexican Americans (Bettendorf & Fischer, 2009).

The mixed findings in the literature regarding acculturation to U.S. culture and body dissatisfaction may be a result of the inconsistent measurement of acculturation (Lara et al., 2005, Warren et al., 2010). Specifically for Mexican American populations, acculturation to dominant U.S. culture has been measured by generational status, length of residence in the U.S., language familiarity and usage, acculturative stress, parent ethnicity, and/or affiliation with U.S. societal values (e.g., Gowen et al., 1999, Nieri et al., 2005, Perez et al., 2002). Many acculturation scales were either too broad of a measure of exposure to U.S. culture (Lester & Petrie, 1995) or too specific in their reliance on single components of culture to be useful.

Additionally, results have varied depending on whether measures conceptualize acculturation as a unidimensional or multidimensional process. Of the studies that utilize a multidimensional conceptualization with Mexican American populations, there appears to be either no correlation (Warren et al., 2010) or a positive correlation (Bettendorf & Fischer, 2009) between adopting U.S. culture and body dissatisfaction. A possible explanation for this discrepant finding is the difference between the actual dimensions of acculturation the two studies measured. Whereas Bettendorf and Fischer (2009) assessed orientation toward U.S. culture (independent of orientation toward Mexican culture) to predict body dissatisfaction, Warren et al. (2010) assessed the combination of orientations (U.S. and Mexican) to predict body dissatisfaction, which confounds the two cultural affiliations.

While the broad concept of acculturation, especially adoption of dominant U.S. culture, has been linked with body image, perhaps it is adopting a more specific component of each culture (i.e., cultural beliefs about female beauty) that more accurately predicts body image. According to the sociocultural perspective, it is culture that defines beauty (Jackson, 2002). One of the most salient means by which people arrive at their definition of beauty is through the messages they receive from society. Studies on Latino culture, of which Mexicans are one subgroup, have found that Latino culture puts forth a larger, curvier female ideal compared to the U.S. female beauty ideal (Gil-Kashiwabara, 2002, Schooler, 2008). Providing support for the notion that Mexican culture indeed differs from the U.S. on its view of the ideal female body, Crandall and Martinez (1996) found that Mexican female college students reported less concern about their weight and more acceptance of overweight people than U.S. female college students.

Conversely, studies on U.S. culture have shown that the central characteristic of female beauty is thinness (Mussell, Binford, & Fulkerson, 2000) and “thinness at a level that is impossible for most women to achieve by healthy means” (Tiggemann, 2002, p. 91). U.S. media convey the message that slender women are attractive and overweight women are unattractive (Perez et al., 2002, Tiggemann, 2002). Beyond attractiveness, a slender female is perceived as more popular, confident, happy, respected and successful in the U.S. (Choate, 2005).

Internalization is the extent to which a person internalizes or adopts a standard (Heinberg, Thompson, & Stormer, 1995). Research has linked internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of beauty to acculturation to dominant U.S. culture. Specifically, studies have shown that greater acculturation to U.S. culture has been linked with preference for thin body types among Mexican Americans (Cachelin et al., 2006, Olvera et al., 2005). However, similar to the mixed results within the acculturation and body image literature, there are studies that report no relationship between acculturation and internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of beauty (Blow et al., 2010, Lester and Petrie, 1995). Again, the issue of appropriate measurement may explain the discrepancies. Studies that used a multidimensional approach to acculturation and specifically assessed the relationship between internalization of sociocultural ideals and orientation toward dominant U.S. culture reported a positive relationship (Cachelin et al., 2006).

Internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of beauty has also strongly predicted negative body image and increased body dissatisfaction across heterogeneous samples (Cashel et al., 2003, Forbes and Jung, 2008, Thompson and Stice, 2001) and within Mexican American populations (Warren et al., 2010). However, little research has examined the relationships among acculturation, internalization of U.S. sociocultural female beauty ideals, and body dissatisfaction, much less the relationships of all three constructs within a Mexican American sample. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine these relationships among undergraduate and graduate Mexican American female college students. The primary research question was whether internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of female beauty mediated the relationship between acculturation and body dissatisfaction.

A secondary purpose of the present study was to assess the distinction between two methods of measuring overall body dissatisfaction: composite site-specific assessment and global assessment. The broad definition of body dissatisfaction as the negatively evaluated discrepancy between people's perceived physical appearance and their ideal physical appearance (Gardner, 2002) does not address whether it is attitudes toward specific physical attributes or toward overall general appearance; the definition simply contends that people are dissatisfied with some aspect of their appearance. Body dissatisfaction measures have been created that assess overall body dissatisfaction in different ways. There are dissatisfaction measures based on the sum/composite of dissatisfaction with specific sites on the body such as the Eating Disorder Inventory – Body Dissatisfaction Subscale (EDI-BD; Garner, Olmsted, & Polivy, 1983), and there are measures that assess dissatisfaction with overall physical appearance such as the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire-Appearance Evaluation subscale (MBSRQ-AE; Cash, 2000). Both forms of assessing body dissatisfaction have been used in the field to measure overall body dissatisfaction.

Thompson (2004) contended that “one of the problems that flows from using only one of these two scales (global or specific) is an interpretive one. Any analysis of results that does not confine the discussion to the specific type of measure may produce conclusions that are erroneous” (p. 9). Use of a composite site-specific measure may not capture the full experience. People may not like specific parts of their body (e.g., thighs or stomach) but may be satisfied with their overall physical appearance. Conversely, a negative evaluation of one specific part of the body may heavily influence their overall appearance evaluation. For example, Forbes and Frederick (2008) found greater breast dissatisfaction was linked to greater overall body dissatisfaction among White college females; it was the high valence of dissatisfaction with a specific site that influenced their overall evaluation. However, the parallel relationship between breast dissatisfaction and global body dissatisfaction did not hold true for the Latina portion of the sample.

Thus, the secondary research question was whether composite site-specific body dissatisfaction measures based on the sum of dissatisfaction with numerous body sites captures the same domain of body dissatisfaction as global body dissatisfaction measures. Some studies suggest substantial overlap between the measures (Perez et al., 2002, Thompson et al., 1994) while others suggest that correlations among the measures were not significant enough to signify redundancy (Forbes & Jung, 2008). In accordance with Thompson's (2004) suggestion and in order to shed light on the distinction (if any) between a global evaluation and evaluation based on the composite of specific body sites, this study utilized both types of body dissatisfaction measures.

In summary, a mediation model was proposed where acculturation to dominant U.S. culture was related to body dissatisfaction and that this relationship was mediated by the internalization of U.S. sociocultural standard of female beauty. Internalization has been proposed and found to account for the relationship between various cultural influences and body dissatisfaction, justifying internalization's role as a mediator of this link within the present study (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999). Additionally, the predictive power of acculturation and internalization on composite site-specific versus global measures of body dissatisfaction was examined.

Our hypothesized model is presented in Fig. 1. We hypothesized that orientation toward dominant U.S. culture would relate to both global and composite site-specific body dissatisfaction and that internalization of U.S. beauty standards would mediate these acculturation–body dissatisfaction relationships. Based on Bettendorf and Fischer's (2009) research in which a multidimensional measure of orientation toward U.S. culture was positively related to body dissatisfaction, we hypothesized that acculturation to dominant U.S. culture would predict composite site-specific body dissatisfaction (path A). Because composite site-specific and global body dissatisfaction measures both purport to assess body dissatisfaction and because studies have shown these types of measures to be correlated (Forbes and Jung, 2008, Perez et al., 2002, Thompson et al., 1994), we hypothesized a positive path between acculturation to U.S. culture and global body dissatisfaction (path B). Additionally, as greater acculturation into dominant U.S. culture has been linked with preference for thinner body types among Mexican American women (Cachelin et al., 2006, Olvera et al., 2005), we hypothesized that acculturation to U.S. culture would predict internalization of U.S. female beauty standards (path C).

We did not expect that Mexican orientation would be related to body dissatisfaction and internalization of U.S. standards of beauty because of the different body image ideals associated with Mexican culture. Mexican culture puts forth a larger, curvier female ideal compared to the U.S. ideal (Schooler, 2008) and places a high value on interdependence in defining worth (Castillo & Cano, 2007). As such we did not expect orientation toward Mexican culture to be significantly linked to internalization (path D) or body dissatisfaction (paths E & F). However, because theoretically, culture drives one's self-concept, value systems, and beliefs (Markus and Wurf, 1987, McCann, 1992), we allowed the potential of a relationship in our original model.

Regarding the paths from internalization of U.S. standards of beauty to composite site-specific body dissatisfaction (path G) and internalization and global body dissatisfaction (path H), we predicted significant positive paths such that greater internalization would be positively related to both composite site-specific and global body dissatisfaction. Numerous studies have shown that an increase in internalization of the U.S. ideal is associated with increased body dissatisfaction (Cafri et al., 2005, Choate, 2005, Forbes and Jung, 2008, Warren et al., 2010).

Also, we investigated the relation (overlap or independence) between composite site-specific and global evaluative attitude measures. As they both purport to measure body dissatisfaction, we hypothesized a significant correlation between the two measures (path I). However, as there is confusion in the literature concerning these measures, we did not propose specific hypotheses regarding what we expected to find in regards to which measure is more strongly related to acculturation and internalization.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 211 Mexican and Mexican American female undergraduate and graduate students at a large southwestern university. Data were analyzed from students who self-identified as Mexican or Mexican American. Participants ranged in age between 18 and 60 years old with an average age of 25.8 years (SD = 8.68). They ranged in body mass index (BMI = kg/m2) between 17.20 and 54.87 with an average BMI of 25.67 (SD = 6.10). In terms of year in school, 27 (13%) were in their first year, 34 (16%) were

Preliminary Analysis

Table 1 contains the means, standard deviations, and correlations among all the scale-level variables in this study. An examination of the individual item responses demonstrated concerns with skewness and kurtosis. We opted for a latent variable modeling approach over a standard path model because of the increased precision due to the examination of disattenuated relations. As such, we used item parcels as a means of estimating the latent constructs.

Parceling is a measurement practice in which

Discussion

This study examined the relationships between acculturation, internalization of U.S. sociocultural standards of female beauty and body dissatisfaction among Mexican American female college students. To date, this is the first study which explores these relationships using a multidimensional conceptualization of acculturation and two measures of body dissatisfaction. The two measures of body dissatisfaction were used in order to examine the overlap between two distinct measures that purportedly

References (57)

  • M.J. Cashel et al.

    Sociocultural attitudes and symptoms of bulimia: Evaluating the SATAQ with diverse college groups

    Journal of Counseling Psychology

    (2003)
  • L.G. Castillo et al.

    Mexican American psychology: Theory and clinical application

  • L.H. Choate

    Toward a theoretical model of women's body image resilience

    Journal of Counseling and Development

    (2005)
  • P.J. Cooper et al.

    The development and validation of the Body Shape Questionnaire

    International Journal of Eating Disorders

    (1987)
  • C.S. Crandall et al.

    Culture, ideology, and antifat attitudes

    Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

    (1996)
  • I. Cuellar et al.

    Acculturation rating scale for Mexican Americans-II: A revision of the original ARSMA scale

    Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences

    (1995)
  • G.B. Forbes et al.

    The UCLA Body Project II: Breast and body dissatisfaction among African, Asian, European, and Hispanic American college women

    Sex Roles

    (2008)
  • G.B. Forbes et al.

    Measures based on sociocultural theory and feminist theory as predictors of multidimensional measures of body dissatisfaction among Korean and US college women

    Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

    (2008)
  • D.A. Frederick et al.

    The UCLA Body Project I: Predictors of body satisfaction and appearance surveillance among 2,206 White, Asian, and Hispanic men and women

    Sex Roles

    (2007)
  • R.M. Gardner

    Body image assessment of children

  • D.M. Garner et al.

    Development and validation of a multidimensional eating disorder inventory for anorexia nervosa and bulimia

    International Journal of Eating Disorders

    (1983)
  • E.F. Gil-Kashiwabara

    Body image disturbance and disordered eating in African-American and Latina women

  • L.K. Gowen et al.

    Acculturation and eating disorder symptoms in adolescent girls

    Journal of Research on Adolescence

    (1999)
  • S. Grabe et al.

    Ethnicity and body dissatisfaction among women in the United States: A meta-analysis

    Psychological Bulletin

    (2006)
  • T.D. Graves

    Acculturation, access, and alcohol in a tri-ethnic community

    American Anthropologist

    (1967)
  • R.J. Hall et al.

    Item parceling strategies in SEM: Investigating the subtle effects of unmodeled secondary constructs

    Organizational Research Methods

    (1999)
  • L.J. Heinberg et al.

    Development and validation of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire

    International Journal of Eating Disorders

    (1995)
  • L. Hu et al.

    Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives

    Structural Equation Modeling

    (1999)
  • Cited by (14)

    • The influence of identity on the prevalence and persistence of disordered eating and weight control behaviors in Mexican American college women

      2019, Appetite
      Citation Excerpt :

      Furthermore, disordered eating related functional impairment was equally high for Latinas compared to non-Hispanic white and other ethnic minorities in the sample. Among Mexican American women, studies have convincingly shown level of acculturation, measured by indicators such as the length of time living in the U.S., generational status, as well as the level of social integration, are predictive of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes and behaviors (Cachelin, Phinney, Schug, & Striegel-Moore, 2006; Doris et al., 2015; Poloskov & Tracey, 2013). Altman, Van Hook, and Gonzalez (2017) reported results of a recent population-based study showing that regardless of socioeconomic status, normal weight women of Mexican origin differed in their self-perception of body weight in a stepwise fashion with prevalence of body dissatisfaction increasing as the level of exposure to American culture increased.

    • Relative deprivation: Measurement issues and predictive role for body image dissatisfaction

      2017, Social Science and Medicine
      Citation Excerpt :

      There are reasons to hypothesize that relative deprivation is a risk factor for BID. Body image is a dimension of a person's overall self-concept (Poloskov and Tracey, 2013), and we know that the self is deflated by the adverse psychosocial effects of lagging behind others, such as the frustration and the feeling of worthlessness arising from ‘looking upward’ and seeing more successful individuals (Wilkinson, 1996, 1997; Wilkinson and Pickett, 2007). Given that BID has a strong subjective component and is socially constructed (Tiggemann, 2004; Grogan, 2016), and in the light of evidence showing that relative deprivation cripples self-esteem (Callan et al., 2008), it is reasonable to hypothesize that the sense of inadequacy triggered by comparisons with better-off individuals affects also a sphere of self-appreciation such as physical appearance.

    • Picking fruit from our backyard's trees: The meaning of nostalgia in shaping Latinas' eating practices in the United States

      2016, Appetite
      Citation Excerpt :

      Latinas also experience the internalization of conventional social expectations that seem to impact negatively on their self-esteem and body satisfaction (Burrowes, 2013; Capodilupo, 2015; Viladrich et al., 2009). In fact, research shows that the prevalence of thinness ideals—along with the media pressure to be skinny—seems to explain body image dissatisfaction among Latinas (Cafri et al., 2006; Hardit & Hannum, 2012; Kluck, 2010; Poloskov & Tracey, 2013; Schooler, 2008; Swami et al. 2010). Studies also report similar levels of body dissatisfaction among Latino women as compared to whites and African Americans (Altabe, 1998; Bay-Cheng, Zucker, Stewart, & Pomerleau, 2002; Cachelin, Rebeck, Chung, & Pelayo, 2002).

    • Body satisfaction, thin-ideal internalization, and perceived pressure to be thin among Canadian women: The role of acculturation and religiosity

      2015, Body Image
      Citation Excerpt :

      In support of these propositions, Ball and Kenardy (2002) found that after accounting for body mass index (BMI) and socioeconomic status, mainstream acculturation, as measured by the number of years women had lived in Australia, significantly predicted body weight dissatisfaction among a sample of over 10,000 women. Similarly, mainstream acculturation positively correlated with body dissatisfaction among Mexican American women (Poloskov & Tracey, 2013). Women's levels of acculturation also may be connected to the extent to which they internalize and/or feel pressure to attain the thin ideal.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text