Messages about appearance, food, weight and exercise in “tween” television

Simpson, Courtney C.; Kwitowski, Melissa; Boutté, Rachel; Gow, Rachel W.; Mazzeo, Suzanne E.

doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2016.08.001

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The list of tween television programs was derived from a preliminary survey that was conducted to assess the type of media content most popular among our target group (Rousseau, Bels, Eggermont, & Van den Bulck, ). Based upon early adolescents' reported popularity and frequency ratings, and relying on recent studies pointing to the prevalence of sexualizing messages in tween‐targeted television (Gerding & Signorielli, ; Rousseau et al., ; Simpson et al., ), the following programs were included: Big Time Rush, Life with Boys, Jessie, Violetta and Shake It Up . A mean score was computed such that higher scores reflected greater exposure to tween television content.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite tween‐geared television's capacity to inform early adolescents in a variety of content areas, studies have indicated that tween television features rather unrealistic and skewed representations of human physical appearance (e.g., Northup & Liebler, ). The findings of content analytic research have demonstrated that television programs specifically targeting tweens perpetuate the idea that female attractiveness is linked to thinness and male attractiveness is represented in a muscular ideal (e.g., Northup & Liebler, ; Simpson, Kwitowski, Boutte, Gow, & Mazzeo, ). In their content analysis of nine Disney and Nickelodeon shows, Northup and Liebler () demonstrated that the thin, white beauty ideal that is present in adult programming is also alive and well in programming targeted to the tween audience.…”

Section: Early Adolescents' Vulnerability To Sexualizing Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Tween Television and Peers: Reinforcing Social Agents in Early Adolescents' Body Surveillance and Self‐Objectification

Rousseau

Eggermont

2017

J of Research on Adolesc

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sociocultural models of body image posit that the media and peers play a role in early adolescents' body dissatisfaction. Introducing a sociocultural perspective on youth sexualization, the present three-wave panel study (N = 968, M = 11.30) sought to examine the role of tween television and peer appearance conversations in early adolescents' body surveillance and self-objectification over time. Special attention was given to the mediating role of media internalization in these relationships. The results showed evidence for a reciprocal interaction between media internalization and peer appearance conversations and identified this reciprocal interaction as the underlying mechanism linking tween television exposure to higher levels of body surveillance and self-objectification 1 year later. Implications for body image and media literacy programs are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Early Adolescents' Vulnerability To Sexualizing Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tween Television and Peers: Reinforcing Social Agents in Early Adolescents' Body Surveillance and Self‐Objectification

Rousseau

Eggermont

2017

J of Research on Adolesc

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Scholars interested in the study of media and body image have emphasized the central role of sexualizing media in early adolescents' body image concerns (Levine & Murnen, 2009; see Ward, 2016, for a review). Sexualizing media promote narrowly defined beauty standards and stress the importance of attractiveness in society (e.g., Simpson, Kwitowski, Boutte, Gow, & Mazzeo, 2016;see, Vandenbosch, 2017, for a review).…”

Section: Internalization: a Moderated Moderation Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Pubertal Timing and Heterosocial Involvement in Early Adolescents’ Media Internalization: A Moderated Moderation Analysis

Rousseau

Laporte

Grundmann

et al. 2020

The Journal of Early Adolescence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present three-wave panel study ( N = 968, [Formula: see text] = 11.30, SD = 1.06) examines how developmental factors—pubertal timing and heterosocial involvement (i.e., one’s involvement in cross-sex activities)—influence early adolescents’ level of media internalization. We hypothesized that early pubertal timing positively moderates the association between sexualizing magazine reading and media internalization. Next, we argued that increased heterosocial involvement will weaken the amplifying influence of early pubertal timing on the aforementioned relationship. Both hypotheses were confirmed. For early adolescents who mature earlier than same-age/sex peers, reading sexualizing magazines resulted in more media internalization. Furthermore, our results showed that moderate to high cross-sex peer interactions can serve as a protective force against the negative influence of early pubertal timing. These results highlight the influential role of appearance-related developmental factors in the processing of sexualizing magazine content and point to the potential protective role of cross-sex peer interactions in media internalization.

show abstract

“…It, therefore, appears that the greater saliency and importance of attractiveness for females than males become internalized by girls early in development and this conceptual knowledge increases with development. Such beliefs might get reinforced via television shows aimed at school age children and teenagers by having female characters mention beauty or attractiveness in nearly every episode [64].…”

Section: Middle Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential Trajectories in the Development of Attractiveness Biases Toward Female and Male Targets

Rennels¹,

Kulhanek²

2017

Perception of Beauty

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Across the first year, most infants have approximately 2.5 times more social interactions with women than men. There is evidence that because of this differential experience, infants develop a cognitive representation for human faces that is weighted toward female-like and attractive. Subsequently, attractiveness is more salient when infants process female relative to male faces. These early asymmetries in facial experience and the greater saliency of attractiveness for female and male targets persist into early childhood, which contributes to attractiveness influencing children's categorization and judgments of females more strongly than for males. During middle childhood, children's facial representations become more differentiated, which might explain increases in children's attractiveness biases for male targets during this developmental period. By adolescence, mating interests seem to combine with these developing facial representations to influence attractiveness preferences. This chapter reviews asymmetries in the saliency of attractiveness for female and male targets from infancy to adolescence and focuses on how cognitive facial representations likely guide how attractiveness influences children's processing of female and male targets.

show abstract

Messages about appearance, food, weight and exercise in “tween” television

Cited by 21 publications

References 25 publications

Tween Television and Peers: Reinforcing Social Agents in Early Adolescents' Body Surveillance and Self‐Objectification

Tween Television and Peers: Reinforcing Social Agents in Early Adolescents' Body Surveillance and Self‐Objectification

The Role of Pubertal Timing and Heterosocial Involvement in Early Adolescents’ Media Internalization: A Moderated Moderation Analysis

Differential Trajectories in the Development of Attractiveness Biases Toward Female and Male Targets

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About