Body image as a mediator of the relationship between body weight and psychological and physical functioning

Abstract

This study examined the impact of body image dissatisfaction on physical health and psychosocial functioning. It was proposed that body image dissatisfaction partially mediates the link between weight and negative health consequences. It was also proposed that body image dissatisfaction negatively affects psychosocial functioning. Analyses were conducted using survey results from 414 participants recruited from University of Hawaii undergraduate Psychology courses. Participants responded online to a survey consisting of self-report measures of body image dissatisfaction, physical health, psychosocial functioning, and health behaviors. Relationships among these variables were examined using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. Additionally, multiple regression analyses were used to test the shared variance simultaneously accounted for by body image dissatisfaction, age, and BMI across several outcome variables: physical health, psychosocial functioning, and health behavior. Finally, a path analysis was conducted to test the strength of a mediational model consisting of BMI as the predictor variable, body image dissatisfaction as the mediating variable, and physical and psychosocial functioning as the outcome variables.