The Relationship between Body Dissatisfaction and Self-esteem - Nursing Assignment Help

Assignment Task

The Relationship between Body Dissatisfaction and Self-esteem
This study examined the relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem, controlling for other domains of satisfaction. Participants were 350 women aged between 18 and 40 years (M = 25.06, SD = 6.24), recruited from a large metropolitan university in Melbourne, Australia. They completed a questionnaire assessing self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and a range of other domains of life satisfaction at baseline and two years later. Hierarchical regression revealed that, when entered at Step 1, body dissatisfaction accounted for a significant amount of variance in change in self-esteem from Time 1 to Time 2, but that this relationship reduced to non-significance when other domains of satisfaction were included into the regression model at Step 2. Current findings suggest that previous bivariate estimates may overstate the influence of body dissatisfaction on self-esteem. However, replication is necessary to ensure that current results are not unduly influenced by identified study limitations.
The Relationship Between Body Dissatisfaction and Self-esteem
Body dissatisfaction refers to an individual’s degree of dissatisfaction with particular parts of the body (such as arms, thighs, etc.) and/or with global aspects of appearance (such as shape and weight) (Cook-Cottone & Phelps, 2003). Although body dissatisfaction is a key feature of eating disorders (American Psychological Association; APA, 2000), dissatisfaction with appearance is also common in non-clinical populations (Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Ricciardelli, McCabe, & Lavelle, 2012). It is estimated that up to 50% of adolescents and adults are at least moderately dissatisfied with their appearance (Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Krawczyk, Thompson, & Ricciardelli, 2012). These prevalence rates have motivated researchers to evaluate the causes and consequences of body dissatisfaction.

One variable that is often linked with body dissatisfaction is self-esteem. Researchers have consistently demonstrated that individuals who are dissatisfied with their appearance also tend to have low self-esteem (McCauley, Mintz & Glenn, 1998; Miller & Downey, 1999; Webster & Tiggemann, 2003). This effect appears robust with respect to differences across samples in terms of age and gender (Wilcox, 1997). Whereas the majority of this research has relied on correlational designs, findings from longitudinal research (Tiggemann, 2005) suggests that the two variables may be causally related. Tiggemann (2005) demonstrated that changes over time in self-esteem can be predicted by body dissatisfaction, but that self-esteem is not predictive of changes in body dissatisfaction. Tiggemann’s findings are consistent with the contingencies of self-worth model (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003), which states that one’s global assessment of self-worth derives from satisfaction with various domains that s/he feels are important to her/his self-concept.

Mellor, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, McCabe and Ricciardelli (2010) identified several problems with Tiggemann’s (2005) findings. First, body dissatisfaction only accounted for 2.5% of the change in self-esteem scores over time, suggesting that other variables are also responsible for fluctuations in self-esteem. Second, by only evaluating one domain of satisfaction, Tiggemann’s (2005) findings may over-state the influence of body dissatisfaction on self-esteem. They argue that other domains of satisfaction, such as health, living standards, relationships, and achievements, are also relevant determinants of global self-worth. To date, a longitudinal examination of the relative influences of each domain on global self-esteem has not been conducted.The aim of the present study is to re-evaluate the predictive value of body dissatisfaction for accounting for changes in self-esteem. It is predicted that body dissatisfaction will significantly predict self-esteem in a bivariate regression (Hypothesis 1), but that this effect will reduce to non-significance after controlling for other domains of satisfaction (Hypothesis 2).
 

Participants
The sample consisted of 350 women aged 18 to 40 years (M = 25.06, SD = 6.24) who were recruited from undergraduate courses offered at a large metropolitan university in Melbourne, Australia. Self-reported height and weight were used to calculate BMI (weight (kg)/height (m2)) for participants. National Institute of Health (NIH, 1998) guidelines were applied to interpret body mass index (BMI) scores: 8% of this sample were “underweight” (BMI<18 xss=removed>  

Materials
Body dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with appearance was measured using the seven item Body Image Dissatisfaction subscale of the Body Change Inventory (BCI; Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2002). The first four items assess dissatisfaction with weight, shape, size, and muscles (e.g., ‘How dissatisfied are you with your weight?’). The remaining three items assess dissatisfaction with specific body regions: hips, thighs, and legs. Participants respond on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely dissatisfied). Item scores are summed, such that higher total scores reflect greater body dissatisfaction. Researchers have demonstrated that the Body Image Dissatisfaction subscale exhibits strong psychometric properties (Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2002). In the current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .92.

Self-esteem. Self-esteem was measured with the 10 item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965). Five items are positively worded and five negatively worded. Item examples are ‘I feel that I have a number of good qualities’ and ‘At times I feel that I am no good at all’. Participants respond on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Self-esteem scores were obtained by adding all item responses, after the negatively worded item responses had been reverse-coded. High scores indicated a strong sense of self-esteem. In the present study, Time 2 estimates of self-esteem were subtracted from Time 1 scores to provide a measure of change in self-esteem across the testing period. Positive change scores indicate that a person’s self-esteem reduced, whereas a negative score reflects improvement in self-esteem at Time 2.Domains of satisfaction. Domains of satisfaction were measured using the items of the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI; International Wellbeing Group [IWG], 2006). The PWI consists of seven items, each prefaced with ‘How satisfied are you with…’ The stems are: ‘your standard of living’, ‘your health’, ‘your achievements in life’, ‘your personal relationships’, ‘how safe you feel’, ‘feeling part of your community’, and ‘your future security’. Participants respond on an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied), with 5 (neutral) as a midpoint. Each item represents a separate domain as prior research has demonstrated their unique predictive value for key outcome variables, including overall wellbeing (IWG, 2006). A total wellbeing score was not required in this study; each item was used as a separate domain measure.

Procedure
Participants were recruited from Deakin University undergraduate courses. Announcements were made at the beginning of lectures to advertise the study to students. Flyers were left at the entrance to the lecture theatre and students who were interested in participating were invited to pick up a flyer at the end of class. The flyers contained a web link which students could use to access and fill out the online survey. Participants entered an alphanumeric code (mother’s maiden name plus participant’s year of birth; e.g., Smith1982) so that Time 1 and 2 data could be linked. The Time 1 survey contained all measures listed above, whereas the Time 2 survey only measured self-esteem. All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS for windows.
 

This Nursing Assignment has been solved by our Nursing Experts at My Uni Paper. Our Assignment Writing Experts are efficient to provide a fresh solution to this question. We are serving more than 10000+Students in Australia, UK & US by helping them to score HD in their academics. Our Experts are well trained to follow all marking rubrics & referencing style.
    
Be it a used or new solution, the quality of the work submitted by our assignment Experts remains unhampered. You may continue to expect the same or even better quality with the used and new assignment solution files respectively. There’s one thing to be noticed that you could choose one between the two and acquire an HD either way. You could choose new assignment solution file to get yourself an exclusive, plagiarism (with free Turnitin file), expert quality assignment or order an old solution file that was considered worthy of the highest distinction.