title: Sociocultural influences on strategies to lose weight, gain weight, and increase muscles among ten cultural groups.
abstract: This study determined how sociocultural messages to change one's body are perceived by adolescents from different cultural groups. In total, 4904 adolescents, including Australian, Chilean, Chinese, Indo-Fijian, Indigenous Fijian, Greek, Malaysian, Chinese Malaysian, Tongans in New Zealand, and Tongans in Tonga, were surveyed about messages from family, peers, and the media to lose weight, gain weight, and increase muscles. Groups were best differentiated by family pressure to gain weight. Girls were more likely to receive the messages from multiple sociocultural sources whereas boys were more likely to receive the messages from the family. Some participants in a cultural group indicated higher, and others lower, levels of these sociocultural messages. These findings highlight the differences in sociocultural messages across cultural groups, but also that adolescents receive contrasting messages within a cultural group. These results demonstrate the difficulty in representing a particular message as being characteristic of each cultural group.
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia. Electronic address: maritam@deakin.edu.au.
authors.forename: Marita P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: Lucy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Busija
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fuller-Tyszkiewicz
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: Lina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ricciardelli
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mellor
authors.affiliation: Deakin University, School of Psychology, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mussap
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001315:Australia; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D002677:Chile; D002681:China; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D005190:Family / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005367:Fiji; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D053580:Muscle Strength; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal; D009520:New Zealand; D010379:Peer Group; D014058:Tonga; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000208:ethnology*; D015431:Weight Loss / Q000208:ethnology*
keywords: Adolescents; Body image; Different cultural groups; Sociocultural influences