Predicting Disordered Eating Intentions Among Incoming College Freshman: An Analysis of Social Norms and Body Esteem

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parental influence, peer norms, body esteem, and disordered eating intentions in a sample of incoming college freshmen women. A total of 427 incoming female college freshmen from a private university in the southeastern United States were surveyed as part of a larger study. Results indicated that body esteem moderated the relationship between parent thinness norms, parent encouragement norms, parent communicative norms, peer acceptability norms, and peer prevalence norms on disordered eating intentions. There was no significant interaction between body esteem and peer thinness norms. These results suggest that efforts to prevent disordered eating among college students should include strategies for changing normative influence, both from parents and peers.

Keywords:

• Body Esteem
• Disordered Eating
• Parent Norms
• Peer Norms

This project was supported by a grant from the Social & Behavioral Science Fund, Wake Forest University, to Steven M. Giles, Principal Investigator

Notes

Note. ∗p < .01.

Note. In each case, paired contrasts were run only for interactions between a given norm (e.g., parent thinness) and body esteem on disordered eating behavior. Therefore, only those significant interactions are reported.

Note. Means with different superscripts (a, b) are different at p < .05.

This method requires that, first, the independent variables are significantly related to the dependent variables. Second, the independent variables must be correlated with the mediating variable. Lastly, through hierarchical regression, the mediating variable is used as a control and, if the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable disappears when the control is applied, the link between the independent and dependent variable is mediated by the variable of interest.