Does Body Image Satisfaction Mediate the Relationship Between Media Use and Perceived Weight Status?

Introduction: Young adults consume high amounts of media, particularly television and internet.  However, mass media has been linked to adverse health outcomes, such as the formation of unrealistically thin body ideals, weight concerns, and decreased body image satisfaction.  Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between media use and perceived weight status among first-year college undergraduates and determine if body image satisfaction mediates this relationship, beyond the influence of body mass index (BMI).

Methods:  Participants included 844 first-year undergraduate students from a large, southwestern university (m age = 18.98; 50% White; 57% Female).  Perceived weight was assessed with the question, “How do you describe your weight”, with responses ranging from 1 (very underweight) to 5 (very overweight).  Students reported how often within the past 30 days they felt satisfied with their body image (never to always).  Finally, students self-reported how many hours (none to 5 or more hours/day) they spent using various media (e.g. television, social network sites, internet).  Responses to these items were summed, creating a media use index.  A path model was used to assess study questions, controlling for race and gender.  MPlus 6.0 was used to obtain maximum likelihood estimates with robust standard errors.

Results:  The data fit the model well.  Although chi-square was significant [χ²(5, n=834)=13.2, p=.02], the chi-square to df ratio was less than 3:1, the CFI was larger than .95 (.99) and the RMSEA was smaller than .06 (.04).  BMI was significantly associated with both body image satisfaction and perceived weight.  However, even after accounting for these significant associations, media use was significantly associated with body image satisfaction, which in turn was significantly associated with perceived weight.  This suggests mediation of the association between media use and perceived weight by body image satisfaction.  Examination of indirect effects confirmed that body image satisfaction mediated the association between media use and perceived weight.  The model accounted for 52.8% of the variance in perceived weight. 

Conclusion:  Given the many adverse health outcomes associated with perceived weight status, including depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and disordered eating, it is important to better understand factors influencing this important variable.  Though media use was not directly related to perceived weight, a significant, indirect relationship was found, indicating mediation by body image satisfaction.  Further research is needed to examine the directionality of these relationships as well as how these relationships may differ by important socio-demographic variables.