Abstract
Purpose: Previous research has used standard least square regression to show that internalization
of the thin ideal may mediate the media exposure-body dissatisfaction relation in young adult
Caucasian females. There is little or no research on Asian Americans. We used structural
equations modeling (SEM) to test (1) whether media exposure is associated with body
dissatisfaction in Asian American young adult females, and (2) whether internalization of the
thin ideal mediates any such association for this group. We also used SEM to test whether the
mediational model provided equivalent fit for Caucasian and for Asian American samples.
Methods: Participants were 289 college undergraduate females (45.2% Caucasian, 51.5% Asian
American). Each completed the study survey.
Results: Hypotheses were supported. Internalization of the thin ideal explained the relation
between media exposure and body dissatisfaction equally well for Asian American and for
Caucasian young adult females.
Conclusions: The broader literature on body dissatisfaction and eating pathology in Caucasian
females may apply to Asian American females. Asian American females may also be engaging
in the unhealthy weight control behaviors known to occur in college students, and may be prone
to developing eating disorders at similar rates. Clinicians need to screen more carefully for
unhealthy weight control behaviors, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorders in young adult
Asian American females.
1
Key words
young adult females
college females
Asian American young adult females
Caucasian young adult females
thin ideal
internalization
media exposure
body dissatisfaction
body image
structural equations modeling
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Introduction
Research suggests that Caucasian females experience greater body dissatisfaction than
non-Caucasian females [1,2]. For Asian American females, however, studies have been few and
findings inconsistent. Several studies have shown higher body satisfaction and a lower incidence
of disordered eating in Asian Americans than in other racial/ethnic groups [3,4], suggesting that
Asian ethnicity/culture serves a protective role. Other studies, however, have shown negative
body image attitudes similar to Caucasians [5,6]. Moreover, recent research suggests that, for
Asian American females, there is a growing trend of aspiring to the Western “thin ideal” [7,8]. It
has even been suggested that Asian American females have thinner ideals than Caucasian
females [9]. The need for additional research on Asian Americans is clear, particularly because
Asians are the second-fastest growing immigrant group in the U.S. [10], may be at high risk for
aspiring to the thin ideal, yet are among the least studied with regard to the development of body
dissatisfaction and disordered eating [11].
The literature on development of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in Caucasian
females suggests that pressure to be thin derives from various sources including the media,
parents, and peers [12]. The media may be most potent and insidious because of pervasive
messages that propagate the thin ideal as the sociocultural standard of beauty [13]. A metaanalytic review of studies on the influence of media images on body satisfaction revealed that
females reported significantly lower body esteem after viewing thin media images as opposed to
average or plus-size images [14]. It may be, however, that the degree of media exposure predicts
the extent of its influence on body image. In a study of Caucasian female undergraduates, for
example, number of magazines (fitness, fashion, gossip, etc.) read and number of hours of
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television viewed in the previous month had a direct effect on body image and eating disorder
symptomatology [15].
For Caucasian females, internalization of the thin ideal plays a key role in the
development of body dissatisfaction [14]. Internalization of the thin ideal refers to the extent to
which an individual “buys into” and attempts to adhere to societal ideals of attractiveness [16], a
process theorized to be a key social-cognitive mechanism in the development of body
dissatisfaction because individuals who subscribe to this thin ideal are likely to discover that it is
unattainable for them [12].
In their literature review, Groesz and colleagues [14] found that even brief exposure to
thin ideal images can have a considerable effect on body dissatisfaction--but only in females who
had internalized the thin ideal and who were more motivated to view themselves in terms of
body image and appearance. In fact, research has suggested that internalization of the thin ideal
may partially mediate the association between media exposure and body disturbance for
Caucasian females [17]. In a study of college-aged females, exposure to popular magazines (e.g.,
Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and Fitness) was positively associated with body dissatisfaction for
women who endorsed the social norms about the thin ideal but was not related to body dissatisfaction
for women who did not [18]. Stice and colleagues [15] found analogous results.
We found no published study that has considered the role of exposure to thin ideal media
in the development of body dissatisfaction in Asian Americans, or whether internalization may
account for any such association. A pilot study on Asian American college females [19] found a
positive relation between internalization of the thin ideal and perceived pressure to be thin and
body preoccupation. Notably, this study did not examine exposure to thin ideal media or test a
mediational model. Another study found that Asian American women tended to adopt non-
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ingroup mainstream beauty ideals, compare themselves to these unattainable standards, and
strive to meet these ideals [20]. These studies suggest that Asian American females may be
influenced by the mainstream Western society’s thin ideal. It is also possible that the
mechanisms of influence operate in ways similar to Caucasian young adult females.
In the present study, we used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesis that, as
with Caucasian young adult females, media exposure is associated with body dissatisfaction and
that internalization of the thin ideal mediates this association for Asian American young adult
females. Using structured equations modeling also allowed us to test whether this mediational
model applied equally to Asian-American females and Caucasian females.
Methods
This study was approved by the University of California, Berkeley’s institutional review
board. Participants were recruited via an electronic posting on the website of the psychology
department. This posting listed age (18-25 years), sex (female), and race eligibility (Caucasian or
Asian American) as inclusion criteria. Participants received course credit. Once consented, the
299 participants completed surveys independently.
Measures
Subjective Socioeconomic Status (sSES). The MacArthur sSES scale [21] was used to
measure participants’ sSES, and has good test-retest reliability [22]. Respondents mark a rung on
an image of a ladder with 10 rungs representing an ascending sSES scale. Thus, sSES was
reported and used as a continuous variable.
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Self-Reported Weight and Height. Participants reported their height and weight. Body
mass index (BMI) was calculated as perceived weight in pounds per height in inches squared,
multiplied by 703 [23].
Media Exposure. Television and magazine exposure served as the observed indicators of
the latent underlying construct of media exposure. A list of TV programs with lead characters
judged to be representative of the thin ideal [24] was selected from TV Guide’s 100 top rated
shows in 2006. Participants were provided a list of shows/channels (e.g., America’s Next Top
Model, the “E” Entertainment channel) and asked to circle the television shows/channels they
watched regularly. Participants were then asked to list any additional shows/channels they
watched regularly. Finally, participants were asked to report the average number of hours of TV
viewing per day [15]. “Thin-ideal TV exposure” was defined as none = 0 hours/day, low = 0.5 –
1 hour/day, medium = 1.5 – 3 hours/day, high = 3.5 – 5 hours/day, and very high = 5.5 or more
hours/day.
Participants were also asked to list the magazines to which they subscribed or which they
purchased or read regularly [15]. Magazines were classified as one of two categories:
Fashion/Entertainment/Lifestyle (e.g., Vogue, Fitness, People, Shape) or Other (e.g., Time,
Newsweek, Home and Garden). Extent of magazine exposure was defined as the number of
Fashion/Entertainment/Lifestyle magazine that participants listed and was rated as follows: 0 =
no print media exposure, 1 magazine = low print media exposure, 2-3 = medium print media
exposure, 3-4 = high print media exposure, > 4 = very high print media exposure.
Internalization of the Thin Ideal. The 30-item Sociocultural Attitudes Toward
Appearance Scale-3 (SATAQ-3) [25] was used to measure sociocultural influences and
internalization of the thin ideal. The SATAQ-3 has been shown to have good internal
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consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent and divergent validity, as well as predictive
validity [25]. It is comprised of four subscales that measure various aspects of media influence:
information, pressures, internalization-general, and internalization-athlete. The information
subscale measures the extent that the media is believed to be an important source of information;
the pressures subscale measures the level of perceived pressure to be thin; the internalizationgeneral subscale measures overall internalization of the socially prescribed thin-ideal; and the
internalization-athlete subscale measures the extent of internalization of the athletic look. For the
mediational models in this study, each subscale served as an indicator representing the single
underlying latent variable, internalization of the thin ideal.
Body Dissatisfaction. The 34-item Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-34) [26] was used
to measure participants’ concerns about their body shape and weight (e.g., “Have you been so
worried about your shape that you have been feeling you ought to diet?”). The BSQ-34 has been
shown to have concurrent, discriminant, and criterion validity, as well as good test-retest
reliability [26]. Higher scores on the BSQ-34 are associated with eating disturbance [27]. The
mean score of the BSQ-34 was used as the dependent variable in the model.
Analytic Strategy
We used confirmatory structural equation modeling (SEM) both to test the hypothesis
that internalization of the thin ideal mediates the association between media exposure and body
dissatisfaction for Asian American females, and to examine whether the mediational model for
Asian American females was similar to the model for Caucasian females. To do so, we used the
AMOS program [28]. SEM has several advantages over standard ordinary least squares
regression. SEM provides: (1) simultaneous (rather than sequential) estimation of the
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interrelations of media exposure, internalization of the thin ideal, and body dissatisfaction, (2)
the ability to test whether the mediational effect is significant, and (3) goodness-of-fit statistics
for overall model adequacy. That is, SEM provides information on how well the observed data
fit the hypothesized theoretical model.
We evaluated goodness-of-model fit using both the comparative fit index (CFI) and the
root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). The CFI is an incremental index of fit of the
hypothesized model relative to the null model. The RMSEA represents a discrepancy between
optimal fit of the hypothesized model to the population covariance matrix. The RMSEA takes
into account model degrees of freedom and is therefore sensitive to model complexity [29]. In
accordance with conventions posited by Hu and Bentler [30], we considered CFI > 0.95 and
RMSEA < 0.08 as our criteria for acceptable model fit.
SEM also enables comparative testing-of-model fit between groups to determine whether
the hypothesized model provided equivalent fit for Caucasian and for Asian American samples.
We evaluated comparative fit of nested models in the testing of factorial invariance with the 2
difference test; a non-significant 2 indicates equivalence across groups [29].
Results
Participants
Of the 299 college undergraduates who completed the study, 133 (44.5%) described
themselves as Caucasian, 154 (51.5%) as within the Asian American group, and 12 (4%) as
“Other.” Of the 154 Asian American participants, 57% described themselves as
Chinese/Taiwanese, 13% as Filipino, 12% as Vietnamese, 12% as Korean, 3% as Japanese, and
8
3% as “other Asian.” For purposes of the present study, the 12 participants who described their
race/ethnicity as “Other” were excluded, leaving a sample of 287.
The two groups, Caucasians and Asian Americans, differed significantly in their sSES
[21] and perceived BMI but not in age. Average age was 20.56 (Range = 18.2 to 25.9; SD =
1.74) and 20.39 years (Range = 18.3 to 24.1; SD = 1.30) for the Caucasian and Asian American
groups, respectively. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Caucasians and 77% of Asians considered
themselves of middle sSES or above, whereas 12% of the Caucasian group and 23% of the Asian
American group considered themselves lower sSES (2 = 13.03, p < .002). The average BMI was
22.48 (Range = 16.5 to 42; SD = 3.34) for Caucasians and 21.48 (Range = 15 to 46.6; SD = 3.52)
for Asian Americans (t = 2.44, p < .02). Almost all (95.5%) of the Caucasian females, but only
about half (47.4%) of the Asian American females reported that only or mostly English was
spoken in their homes, a proxy variable for acculturation [31].
A greater percentage of Asian Americans than Caucasians reported moderate or high TV
exposure: 48.7% to 38.5%. However, mean differences by race/ethnicity were not statistically
significant (t = 1.48, p < .14). Caucasians and Asian Americans also reported differences in their
magazine exposure (Fashion/ Entertainment/Lifestyle magazines): 30.0% of Caucasians and
20.7% of Asian Americans reported regular purchase of or subscription to these magazines.
Mean differences by race/ethnicity were statistically significant, (t = 2.65, p < .01). TV exposure
and magazine exposure were positively associated (r = .19, p < .001).
Prior research typically has focused on the effects of either TV exposure or print
exposure. Recognizing that individuals are not likely to be exposed to thin ideal television only
or to thin ideal print media only, we sought to test a more accurate representation of reality and
examined the simultaneous effect of exposure to TV and print media. Thus, we conceptualized
9
media exposure --TV and print together --as a latent, underlying construct and used structural
equations modeling to test a more complete model.
Unadjusted associations of body dissatisfaction with BMI (r = 0.32, p < .001) and sSES
(r = -.11, p < 0.05) were significant, as was the t-test for differences in body dissatisfaction
between Asian-American and Caucasian females (Table 1). Level of acculturation (English
spoken in the home) was not significantly related to body dissatisfaction (r = .06, p < 0.34).
When body dissatisfaction was regressed on all variables together, the association of sSES with
body dissatisfaction became non-significant (Table 2). Higher self-reported BMI ( = .07, p <
.001) and being Caucasian ( = .26, p < 03) were associated with greater body dissatisfaction,
(Caucasian M = 2.91, SD = 0.85; Asian M = 2.70, SD = 0.78). Participants’ level of
acculturation remained unrelated to body dissatisfaction.
Internalization as a Mediator in the Media Exposure - Body Dissatisfaction Association
In order to test the hypothesis that the effect of media exposure on body dissatisfaction
was indirect and accounted for by internalization of the thin ideal for the sample as a whole, we
followed procedures recommended by Cheung and Lau [32]. With no other variables in the
model, the direct relation between media exposure and body dissatisfaction was significant ( =
.23, p < .001). However, this direct relation of media exposure to body dissatisfaction was no
longer significant when internalization of the thin ideal was included in the model (see Figure 1),
suggesting this relation was explained by internalization of the thin ideal (i.e., that the effect of
exposure on body dissatisfaction was indirect; see below).
As Figure 1 shows, media exposure was significantly related to internalization of the thin
ideal, and internalization was significantly related to body dissatisfaction. Overall fit indices for
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the full model showed that the model adequately explained the data (CFI = .98, RMSEA = .07).
The final step was to test whether the indirect effect of media exposure on body dissatisfaction
through internalization of the thin ideal was significant – in other words, whether internalization
of the thin ideal explained the relation of media exposure to body dissatisfaction. Because SEM
may produce biased estimates of mediation effects, Cheung and Lau [32] argue for use of a
bootstrapping procedure to provide bias-corrected confidence intervals for the estimated indirect
effect. Therefore, we used the bootstrapping capabilities of AMOS to generate 1000 samples.
The standardized estimate of the indirect effect was -0.23 (95% CI 0.31, 1.69, p < .001). These
results strongly supported the hypothesis that internalization of the thin ideal serves as a mediator
of the relation between media exposure and body dissatisfaction.
Test of Invariance Across Groups in the Mediated Media Exposure - Body Dissatisfaction
Association
We tested for invariance across Caucasian and Asian American groups using SEM,
which allowed us to determine whether the mediated model fit both groups equally well [29]. A
baseline model was estimated for both groups simultaneously, with all parameters (regression
weights, variances, and covariances) allowed to vary across groups as necessary. Next, we tested
a model in which the regression parameters were constrained to be equal across the two groups.
The2 test of the difference between baseline and constrained models was non-significant,
indicating that internalization variables explained the relation of media exposure to body image
equally well for both Caucasian and Asian-American groups.
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Discussion
This study makes several notable contributions to the literature on media exposure,
internalization, and body dissatisfaction in Asian American young adult females. Our study
revealed that Asian American college females tended to watch more television but read fewer
magazines that promote the thin ideal than Caucasians. Further, we found that thin ideal media
exposure was related to body dissatisfaction, and internalization of the thin ideal was related to
body dissatisfaction, in Asian Americans. We know of no published study that has looked at thin
ideal media exposure and body dissatisfaction in this group and only a very few [19] that have
shown that this group is prone to internalization of the western thin ideal.
Most notably, our study went further than previous research in terms of testing whether
internalization of the thin ideal mediated the association between media exposure and body
dissatisfaction in not only Caucasian but also in Asian American young adult females. The
association between media exposure and body dissatisfaction is well established for Caucasian
females [2,14] and a handful of studies has shown that internalization of the thin ideal partly
explains that association [15,17,18]. These mediational studies, however, employed data analytic
techniques that test each “piece” of the model sequentially. Our use of SEM allowed us to model
all interrelations and to test for mediation simultaneously. SEM also allowed us to test whether
the model explained those interrelations equally well for both groups. Thus, the present study
reinforces the argument that the power of the media to influence the way young Caucasian
females view their bodies resides largely in a person’s susceptibility to media propagation of the
thin ideal.
Our study extended these findings--not only because of our focus on Asian American
young adults but, as importantly, because we compared this group with their Caucasian
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counterparts. We showed persuasively that the mediational model holds true for Asian American
females--and in much the same way as it does for Caucasian females. Given that the model
applied equally to both groups, it is possible that the broader literature on body dissatisfaction
and on eating pathology in Caucasian females applies to Asian American college females as
well. That is, it raises the disquieting likelihood that a considerable proportion of Asian
American young adult females also engage in the unhealthy weight control behaviors (e.g.,
fasting, purging, laxative use, etc.) that are known to occur in college students. Almost 25% of
college students engage in unhealthy weight control behaviors, and about one in five report
having had an eating disorder at some time [33].
The risk for the development of body dissatisfaction and eating pathology in Asian
Americans tends to be underestimated. Franko and colleagues [34] found that among youth who
reported laxative use, Asians were significantly less likely to be referred for further evaluation
than non-Asians. Further, several studies [19,35] have shown that eating disorders may go
undetected in Asian women because they are thought to be naturally thin. Research is warranted
to investigate these issues.
The results of this study run counter to research that suggests that being of a racial/ethnic
minority may protect against internalization of the Western thin ideal [2]. Our sample comprised
young adults; it is possible that being Asian American is protective at younger ages. There is
literature to suggest that racial/ethnic minorities in the United States are aware of Western
cultural ideals, internalize these ideals, and strive to attain these ideals over time [20,36]. In fact,
because race/ethnicity already may differentiate racial/ethnic minorities from others, meeting
cultural standards and “fitting in” may be perceived as even more of an imperative to their social
survival, especially in adolescence and young adulthood [37]. The Asian American college
13
females in this sample were likely largely acculturated to Western culture given that they
attended a major U.S. university. These factors may explain why being of a racial/ethnic
minority in the U.S. did not protect the young women in this study from being prone to
internalizing the thin ideal.
Caucasians believed themselves to be of higher sSES and were more acculturated (almost
all spoke English in their homes) relative to the Asian Americans. However, sSES and level of
acculturation were unrelated to body dissatisfaction. These results are consistent with research
that has shown that body dissatisfaction is pervasive across socioeconomic levels [38]. Our
findings are also congruent with those studies that have shown that lower levels of Western
acculturation may not be protective against internalization of the Western thin-ideal or body
dissatisfaction [35].
There are several caveats in interpreting the findings of this study. Our sample comprised
college females between 18-25 years-old enrolled in psychology classes at a major university in
Northern California; study results may not apply to individuals that do not match these
characteristics. Young adult females, however, are among those most susceptible to body
dissatisfaction and disordered eating [33].
Another limitation of this study is that the Asian American group comprised young
women of different Asian nationalities. We recognize that these nationalities represent distinct
cultures. Yates and colleagues [39] compared Caucasians, African Americans and various Asian
sub-groups (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, etc.) and found that Japanese American females had the
highest self-dissatisfaction score of any group, even for those with low BMIs. Clearly, future
research in this area must focus on specific Asian groups.
14
Notwithstanding the limitations, the results of this study suggest that clinicians need to
screen more carefully for unhealthy weight control behaviors, body dissatisfaction, and eating
disorders in young Asian American females. In addition, media-literacy programs have proven
effective in reducing Caucasian females’ perceptions that the media-prescribed thin ideal is a
realistic and desirable standard of beauty [40]. Future research should examine whether
analogous intervention programs are effective for Asian Americans.
15
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