Sociocultural influences on body image concerns of young Chinese males

Abstract

This research assessed the extent to which sociocultural factors implicated in explanations of weight dissatisfaction among young Western females extend to sources of body image concern in emerging adult and adolescent males from the People's Republic of China. In Study 1, 219 Mainland Chinese male university students completed measures of stature concern, fatness concern, sociocultural influence (i.e., appearance-based social pressure, teasing, and comparison), and demographics. Social pressure and teasing made unique contributions to fatness concern among participants. Physical stature concerns were also predicted by social pressure and comparison, independent of reported height and fatness concerns. In Study 2, findings were largely replicated in late adolescent (n = 299) and early adolescent (n = 265) boys. Together, findings supported the hypothesis that appearance pressure, teasing, and comparison may be salient influences on a range of body image concerns within diverse adolescent and young adult samples.