Interaction of hormonal and social environments in understanding body image concerns in adolescent girls

Abstract

During adolescence, peer approval becomes increasingly important and may be perceived as contingent upon appearance in girls. Concurrently, girls experience hormonal changes, including an increase in progesterone. Progesterone has been implicated in affiliative behavior but inconsistently associated with body image concerns. The current study sought to examine whether progesterone may moderate the association between perceived social pressures to conform to the thin ideal and body image concerns. Secondary analyses were conducted in cross-sectional data from 813 girls in early puberty and beyond (ages 8-16) who completed assessments of the peer environment, body image concerns, and progesterone. Models for mediation and moderation were examined with BMI, age, and menarcheal status as covariates. Belief that popularity was linked to appearance and the experience of weight-related teasing were both positively associated with greater body image concerns, but neither was associated with progesterone once adjusting for covariates. Progesterone significantly interacted with perceived social pressures in predicting body image concerns. At higher progesterone levels, appearance-popularity beliefs and weight-related teasing were more strongly related to body image concerns than they were at lower progesterone levels. Findings support a moderating role for progesterone in the link between social pressures and body image concerns in girls. This study adds to a growing literature examining how girls' hormonal environments may modulate responses to their social environments. Longitudinal and experimental work is needed to understand temporal relations and mechanisms behind these associations.

Trait Negative Affect Interacts With Ovarian Hormones to Predict Risk for Emotional Eating

“…The presence of stronger hormone effects in the BE subsample in this study parallels results from a previous study that did not examine individual differences in negative affect (Klump et al, 2014) and suggests that women with a history of clinically significant binge eating may be particularly sensitive to ovarian hormone influences. Although prior studies across the menstrual cycle have suggested that progesterone increases emotional eating by counteracting the protective effects of estradiol (Klump, Keel, Racine, et al, 2013), findings from this study are consistent with recent evidence that progesterone may also strengthen the influence of psychosocial risk factors for disordered eating (e.g., weight-based teasing; Forney et al, 2019). The combination of sustained high negative affect and a within-persons peak in progesterone may therefore be a "perfect storm" for dysregulated eating in women with a history of BEs, who may also be more likely to have other sources of biological or behavioral risk (e.g., a history of dieting) that potentiate these effects.…”

Probing corporeal awareness in women through virtual reality induction of embreathment illusion

“…This might be caused by the fact that during the premenstrual phase women exhibit a distortion of the perception of their body image, which results, for example, in perceiving an increase in body size 56 , 57 , an overestimation of waist size 58 or to a higher focus on unattractive body parts 59 . This distortion might be caused by higher levels of progesterone during the premenstrual phase, which are proved to cause higher body image concerns 60 . The body image dissatisfaction during the premenstrual phase could also be explained by interoceptive and physical symptoms such as bloating, breast tenderness and fluid retention 93 .…”

Gonadal Hormone Influences on Sex Differences in Binge Eating Across Development

“…Indeed, research has demonstrated that associations between ovarian hormones and other ED symptoms may differ according to the environmental context. For example, Forney and colleagues [ 90 ] found that progesterone levels were associated with body image concerns in girls, but only in the presence of other psychosocial stressors (e.g., weight-related teasing).…”