Negative messages from parents and sisters and Latina college students’ body image shame

Latinas’ internalization of U.S. beauty ideals as a moderator of the relations between appearance-related messages from family members and Latinas’ depressive symptoms

“…Consistent with Latinas' emphasis on familism values, as well as principles from family discourse theory (Johnson, 2007), previous work reveals that family members' negative eating and weight messages contribute greatly to Latina young women's perceptions of their bodies and health outcomes (Gruber et al, 2022;Hitti et al, 2020;Rivero et al, 2022). Family discourse theory suggests that family members can be important and relevant transmitters of beauty ideals (Johnson, 2007).…”

“…Sample items include: “You need to lose weight.” and “If you eat that, you will get fat.” Items were averaged with higher scores indicating higher frequency of negative eating and weight messages. The PEWM survey has been previously utilized in study with Latina young adults (i.e., 18–25 years) (Rivero et al, 2022). Cronbach’s alphas were acceptable for mothers (α = .95), fathers (α = .96), and sisters (α = .95).…”

“…Similarly, parents born in the U.S. may be more aware of the pressures Latinas experience about their bodies from society and as a result, provide more encouraging messages to their daughters about their bodies (Romo & Mireles-Rios, 2016). Further, we controlled for birth order because participants who are older sisters reported more depressive symptoms (Rivero et al, 2022). Birth order was coded 0 = younger sister and 1 = older sister .…”

“…Most studies that have utilized the sociocultural model as a framework for their study, have examined the sociocultural model in the context of eating disordered behaviors/eating disorders or body image outcomes (Austin & Smith, 2008; Rivero et al, 2022; Warren et al, 2009), and not depressive symptoms. Empirically, our findings provide insight into how impactful negative messages from family members and internalizing U.S. beauty ideals may be for Latinas.…”

Body image as a global mental health concern

“…Body image disturbances and physical appearance concerns are prevalent in most Latin American countries (McArthur et al, 2005 ; Silva et al, 2011 ; Forbes et al, 2012 ; Amaral and Ferreira, 2017 ; Swami et al, 2020 : Bolívar-Suárez et al, 2021 ; León-Paucar et al, 2021 ). Research points to several sociocultural factors related to body image concerns in Latin American samples, such as pressure to achieve socially prescribed body ideals and the internalization of appearance ideals (Austin and Smith, 2008 ; Mellor et al, 2008 ; Forbes et al, 2012 ; de Carvalho et al, 2017 ; de Carvalho and Ferreira, 2020 ), unique pressures to meet unrealistic standards of beauty (Forbes et al, 2012 ; Gruber et al, 2022 ), thin-ideal awareness (Moreno-Domínguez et al, 2019 ), negative appearance-related messages from family members (Rivero et al, 2022 ), acculturative stress (Quiñones et al, 2022 ), and acculturation (Marquez and Benitez, 2021 ).…”