آیا نارضایتی از بدن نتایج سلامت روان در یک نمونه از دانشجویان عمدتا اسپانیایی پیش بینی می کند؟

While body dissatisfaction research has focused primarily with non-Hispanic White populations, it may also adversely affect minority mental health. The purpose of this study is to assess the association between body dissatisfaction and measures of mental health in a predominantly Hispanic college sample. One hundred seventy-four college students at a Hispanic-serving university in the Southwest United States completed self-report measures of life satisfaction, self-esteem, depression, psychological well-being, neuroticism and body image. Males comprised 38.3% of the sample. While the single greatest predictor of mental health was neuroticism (explaining between 22% and 44% of the incremental variance in the outcome measures), the body dissatisfaction by sex interaction explained additional variability in three of the four mental health outcome measures, such that increased body dissatisfaction adversely impacted mental health among women. Increased body dissatisfaction was predictive of poor general psychological well-being for both sexes. Men and individuals with lower body mass indices had better mental health outcomes. While neuroticism was clearly the strongest predictor of mental health, body dissatisfaction was related to poor mental health among women in a predominantly Hispanic sample of college students.

Body image is defined as a multifaceted psychological construct that pertains to subjective attitudes and perceptual experiences of one’s body, particularly its appearance (Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002). Body dissatisfaction is defined as a person’s mental image of one’s physical self and the evaluation of one’s behavior as it relates to their body image (ter Borgt et al., 2006). Past research demonstrated a strong association between body dissatisfaction and symptoms of disordered eating (Stice and Whitenton, 2002, ter Borgt et al., 2006 and Warren et al., 2005) and adverse mental health outcomes including decreased life satisfaction, psychological distress (Bromley, 1999), lower subjective well-being (DeNeve & Cooper, 1998), lower quality of life (Cash & Fleming, 2002b), low self-esteem (Powell & Hendricks, 1999), depression (Noles, Cash, & Winstead, 1985) and anxiety (Cash & Fleming, 2002a).

The present study evaluated the association between body dissatisfaction and mental health outcomes in a predominantly Hispanic sample. Our findings suggest that while neuroticism is the strongest predictor of mental health outcomes, body dissatisfaction can predict mental health outcomes for female Hispanics. While the study has a number of limitations, we believe our findings are a step in the direction of bridging a gap in the literature regarding mental health outcomes of body dissatisfaction in a rapidly growing population with limited access to care.