Childhood beauty pageant contestants: associations with adult disordered eating and mental health.
This study evaluated the association between childhood beauty pageants and adult disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, depression, and self-esteem. Eleven women who participated in childhood beauty pageants were matched on age and BMI with 11 non-participating women. Childhood pageant participants scored higher on body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation than non-participants, and showed a trend toward greater ineffectiveness. There were no significant differences between groups on measures of bulimia, body perception, depression, and self-esteem. These findings suggest childhood beauty pageant participation may influence adult body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation, but not bulimic behaviors, body perception, depression, and self-esteem.
Wonderlich
Anna L
AL
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Ackard
Diann M
DM
Henderson
Judith B
JB