Trait-Based Emotional Intelligence, Body Image Dissatisfaction, and HRQoL in Children

Abstract

Background: Body image dissatisfaction (BID) is related to an increased risk for various health issues including descreased health-related quality of life (HRQoL), the development of problematic eating behaviors and obesity. Previous research indicates that emotional intelligence is one important factor related to BID in adults. Whether this is the case in children, remains yet unknown. Taking this into consideration, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between BID and trait-based emotion intelligence (TEI) as well as HRQoL in female and male primary school children. Materials and methods: TEI and BID were assessed via self-reports as well as HRQoL via parental reports in a large sample of 991 primary school children (429 girls) within the "Baden Württemberg Study", which evaluated the effectiveness of the health prevention programm "Join the Healthy Boat" in Southwestern Germany. Results: Our findings demonstrated the interrelation between higher levels of TEI and lower levels of BID among girls and boys. Positive associations were found between better HRQoL, better intrapersonal and stress management abilites (subscales of TEI) and lower BID, as reflected by parental and self-reports. Conclusions: Our results reveal an interconnectivity between TEI, BID, and better HRQoL in female and male primary school children. Although the observed correlations were rather small, they nervertheless support the idea that TEI consists a key-factor for the self-regulation of health-related behavior. Prevention programs could benefit from including processes, that sough to improve aspects of emotional intelligence such as intrapersonal, interpersonal abilities, and adaptability, as an effort of preventing problematic habits or lifestyles that could lead to disordered eating behaviors as well as to obesity in middle childhood.

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Obesity and Eating Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Mapping Review

“…The remaining 47 articles were evaluated for inclusion by reviewing their full text and resulted in the exclusion of 38 records for the following reasons: (1) they did not employ cross-sectional/cohort studies ( n = 5), (2) EI was not a predictor ( n = 11) or (3) participants had a mean age of ≥18 years ( n = 22). Finally, 9 articles [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ] were included in the systematic mapping review ( Figure 1 ).…”

“…A description of the included studies is reported in Table 1 . The included articles were published between 2007 [ 35 ] and 2020 [ 34 , 38 ] in China [ 39 , 40 ], Spain [ 34 , 42 ], Germany [ 38 ], France [ 36 ], Mexico [ 41 ], Taiwan [ 37 ] and the United States [ 35 ]. All studies employed a cross-sectional design.…”

“…The mean age ranged from 9.58 [ 38 ] to 18.66 [ 35 ] years across samples. Five out of nine records did not report the BMI of the sample [ 34 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 ], and only one study employed the BMI-for-age percentile as an indicator to measure the size and growth patterns of children and teenagers [ 38 ]. Among the remaining articles, the mean BMI ranged from 19.1 kg/m 2 [ 42 ] to 23.2 kg/m 2 [ 35 ].…”

“…Three [ 34 , 38 , 41 ] out of nine studies showed a low risk of bias across the AXIS domains ( Table 2 ). The study design’s appropriateness to the study aims was judged inadequate in three studies [ 35 , 39 , 40 ] due to the use of a cross-sectional design to assess mediation or moderation models, which has been said to be problematic [ 43 ].…”

Assessing Health-Related Quality of Life Among Survivors of Testicular Cancer: A Systematic Review

“…HRQoL has garnered attention in the literature and in practice to serve as a more specific measure of QoL ( Latas et al, 2014 ). This, too, has a far-reaching application in the literature, ranging from women’s health ( Zhu et al, 2016 ) to adolescent body image ( Pollatos et al, 2020 ) and from stroke research ( Martino Cinnera et al, 2020 ) to epilepsy ( Reilly et al, 2020 ). HRQoL is also among the top measured variables in much of the cancer survivorship literature ( Backemar et al, 2020 ; Bayley-Veloso et al, 2020 ; Grössmann et al, 2020 ; Rammant et al, 2020 ).…”