A Longitudinal Study Of The Relationship Between Self-objectification And Restrictive Eating: The Role Of Appearance Anxiety And Perceived Control

In the long run,restricted eating do not be able to achieve the purpose of maintaining and reducing weight,and may even lead to further weight gain,which will affect the individual’s physical and mental health,so it is especially important to find out the mechanisms that cause restricted eating.Individuals with self-objectification and appearance anxiety treat appearance as the only criterion for evaluating their value,pay more attention to it and care about others’ attention and evaluation of themselves,and frequently and habitually scrutinize their appearance,which will have an impact on their restricted eating.In addition,whether inner feelings and thoughts turn into actual actions depends on the individual’s perceived control over himself or herself.The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-objectification,appearance anxiety,and restricted eating,and the role that a perceived control plays in this.This study enriches the empirical research of objectification theory through a longitudinal study to provide theoretical support for the prevention of restrictive eating problems among college students.The Chinese version of The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire,Objectified Body Consciousness Scale,the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale,and Perceived Control Scale as research instruments in the study to measure the same subjects twice in a university in Shandong.The results showed that:(1)Restricted eating increased with grade;There was no gender difference between restricted eating and appearance anxiety;(2)Self-objectification at the former point in time can predict the appearance anxiety and restrictied eating at the later point in time,while the appearance anxiety and restrictied eating at the former point in time cannot predict the self-objectification at the later point in time.In addition,there was a two-way relationship between appearance anxiety and restricted eating.(3)Appearance anxiety partially mediated the relationship between self-objectification and restricted eating;(4)The latter half path of the mediating effect was moderated by perceived control.Specifically,for individuals with higher perceived control,appearance anxiety had a more significant predictive effect on restrictive eating,while for individuals with lower perceived control,appearance anxiety had a relatively small predictive effect on restrictive eating.This study concludes that college students’ restrained eating is affected by their self-objectification,and the higher the level of self-objectification,the higher the level of restrained eating;at the same time,self-objectification increases the risk of restrained eating by affecting appearance anxiety;in addition,a reasonable reduction of the perceived control can reduce the effect of appearance anxiety on restrained eating.