Sizing up peers: adolescent girls' weight control and social comparison in the school context.
Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and multi-level modeling, we examine the role of social comparison with schoolmates in adolescent girls' weight control. Specifically, we focus on how girls' own weight control is influenced by the body sizes and weight-control behaviors of their schoolmates. Our findings suggest that comparisons with similar others (in this case, girls of a similar body size) appear to have the strongest association with individual girls' reports of trying to lose weight. For example, the odds that an overweight girl is engaged in weight control increase substantially when many overweight girls in her school are also trying to lose weight. This study highlights how schools play an important role in shaping girls' decisions to practice weight control and demonstrates how social comparison theory improves our understanding of how health behaviors are linked to social contexts.
Mueller
Anna S
AS
Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, I University Station G1800, Austin, TX 78712, USA. AMueller@prc.utexas.edu
Pearson
Jennifer
J
Muller
Chandra
C
Frank
Kenneth
K
Turner
Alyn
A
D000293:Adolescent; D001828:Body Image; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010379:Peer Group; D012574:Schools; D012944:Social Support; D014481:United States; D015431:Weight Loss