Original ArticlesOverweight concerns and body dissatisfaction among third-grade children: The impacts of ethnicity and socioeconomic status☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Subjects and Methods
All third-grade children in 13 northern California public elementary schools were eligible to participate in a study of health behaviors. Parents were informed of the study by mail and given an opportunity to refuse participation for their children. Children were allowed to decline participation at any time during data collection. Trained data collectors administered surveys and performed anthropometric measures at schools. Trained interviewers made phone calls to parents or guardians during
Results
Of 999 third-grade children enrolled in the 13 schools, 969 (97.0%) participated in the study. Parents refused participation for 29 children, and one child was absent throughout. Participants and non-participants did not differ in age or sex. For analysis, we excluded one randomly chosen sibling from 12 pairs, and 62 children classified as requiring special education or having limited English proficiency did not complete self-report surveys, resulting in an analysis sample of 895 children.
Discussion
This study indicates that Hispanic and African American girls are not immune to the cultural emphasis on extreme thinness. Latina and African American third-grade girls reported greater or equivalent levels of dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors in comparison with white girls, even after controlling for actual body fatness and SES. Our findings suggest that body dissatisfaction and overweight concerns are prevalent across sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. Traditional “protective
Acknowledgements
We thank Sarah J. Erickson, PhD, Christina Russell, Kathy Valenzuela, Mireya Samaniego, Dina L. G. Borzekowski, EdD, Sally McCarthy, Connie Watanabe, MA, Ann Varady, MS, and Helena C. Kraemer, PhD, for their contributions to this study. We also thank the students, parents, teachers, and administrators who participated in this project.
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2013, Body ImageCitation Excerpt :In one study of over 900 Australian children and adolescents, a linear increase in body dissatisfaction with increasing BMIz was reported in girls but, in boys, both those with very low BMIz, and those with high BMIz reported more body dissatisfaction than did boys in the healthy BMI range (Kostanski et al., 2004). Ethnicity (Robinson, Chang, Haydel, & Killen, 2001) and socioeconomic status (Shrewsbury & Wardle, 2008) are known to influence BMIz in children, but whether these factors account for gender inconsistencies among reports of the relationship between body dissatisfaction and BMIz in children is unclear. Since the prevalence of overweight has tripled in the last three decades among African American children (Ogden et al., 2006), efforts should be made to investigate associations in this population, and to investigate their relationships to longer term changes in nutrient intake.
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Supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health (R01 HL54102), and the Halter Fund of the Stanford Medical Scholars Program (Ms Chang).
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Reprint requests: Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatrics and Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention, Stanford University School of Medicine, 1000 Welch Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304.