GENERALIDADES DE LAS HABILIDADES MOTRICES

A number of studies have explored the role of body shame in the relationship between self-objectification and negative mental health outcomes. Overall, six studies were found to explore this link, focusing on outcomes of; depression (Grabe et al, 2007); disordered eating (Noll & Fredrickson, 1998; Slater & Tiggemann 2002; 2010);

and a combination of these and other outcomes (Kahumoku et al, 2011; Tiggemann &

Kuring, 2004). A further study more specifically explored the role of body shame in the relationship between childhood abuse and disordered eating symptoms (Andrews, 1997).

In this study, Andrews (1997) reported that childhood abuse was significantly associated with bulimia in women When body shame was controlled for, the relationship reduced to non-significance, leading the author to conclude that body shame was playing a mediating role in this relationship. However, the results must be interpreted with caution due to the correlational design o f the study, which evades the establishment of causal links. Furthermore, the preliminary sample size (N = 69) was further reduced, once participants were assessed, to nine who met the diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa. This sample size could result in sample biases, leading to difficulties in generalising these findings to other individuals with similar experiences, so further studies would be needed to replicate the data. Also, the use o f self-report measures may have resulted in response biases due to exploration of the difficult topics, such as abuse and body shape, therefore the findings should be interpreted cautiously.

It appears that there are commonalities across the studies that look at the effect of body shame in the relationship between self-objectification and eating disorder symptomatology. Furthermore, objectification in the literature is compiled o f a number of elements with researchers ofien looking at the inter-relatedness between some of these components. Noll and Fredrickson (1998) and Slater and Tiggemann (2002) investigated the relationship between components of self-objectification and disordered eating outcomes. Although they both found that body shame partially mediated this relationship, each study reported a slightly different structural pathway to this model Noll and Fredrickson reported a direct link between self-objectification and disordered eating, something which Slater and Tiggemann did not. Furthermore, Slater and Tiggemann introduced the component of self-surveillance to the pathway, supporting Fredrickson and Roberts’ original theory by suggesting that self-objectification is significantly linked to self-surveillance and body shame simultaneously. Self­

surveillance is also significantly linked to body shame, which they go on to suggest is linked with disordered eating. A possible explanation for the variation in these results could be that the sample ages differ largely between the studies. Noll and Fredrickson replicated their findings with two samples o f undergraduate girls with mean ages of 18.8 and 18.3 years. Contrastingly, Slater and Tiggemann’s study consisted o f two samples of adolescent girls, with mean ages o f 14.5 years and 14.1 years. In a more recent study, Slater and Tiggemann (2010) explored the relationship between self­

surveillance, body shame, appearance anxiety and disordered eating in a sample of Australian adolescents. They proposed a mediational model whereby self-surveillance was linked to body shame and appearance anxiety and these in turn were linked to disordered eating. They reported that the data showed an acceptable to good fit for girls and a good fit for boys in relation to this pathway, which the authors conclude provides further support for Slater and Tiggemann (2002) findings that self-surveillance leads to body shame, which acts as a partial mediator between self-objectification and disordered eating. Although Slater and Tiggemann (2010) feel able to conclude that their findings support these previous findings, they were measuring self-surveillance, whereas Slater and Tiggemann (2002) were measuring self-objectification and self­

surveillance. Therefore the ability to conpare findings across the studies might be

questionable. Tiggemann and Kuring (2004) provided further evidence supporting this link by reporting that body shame and appearance anxiety were linked to disordered eating and therefore together fully mediated the relationship between self­

objectification and disordered eating. These results contradict those of Slater and Tiggemann (2002) who found a significant link between self-objectification and appearance anxiety but no onward significance between appearance anxiety and disordered eating.

Tiggemann and Kuring (2004) extended their study to look at depressed mood.

In a sample of undergraduate men and women (mean age = 22.11) they found that body shame, appearance anxiety, self-objectification and self-surveillance moderately positively correlated with depressed mood in young women. Furthermore, body shame and appearance anxiety were also found to fully mediate the relationship between self­

objectification, self-surveillance and depressed mood in the same group. In men, body shame was not correlated with depressed mood whereas appearance anxiety was moderately correlated. This contradicts other research relating to the role of body shame in boys. Grabe, Hyde and Lindberg (2007) explored the mediating role o f body shame and rumination in the relationship between self-objectification (represented as self-surveillance) and depression among a community sample of adolescents (mean age

= 11.24). Although their findings for the girls replicated those o f Tiggemann and Kuring as body shame, and additionally rumination, were found to partially mediate the relationship between self-surveillance and depression, the conclusions for the boys’

sample differed. They found that self-surveillance was significantly linked to body shame, which in turn was significantly linked to depression, thus suggesting that body shame is a partial mediator in boys’ as-well However, the age differences between study samples could explain the differing conclusions relating to the role o f body shame in the depression pathway. Due to the age differences between studies, different psychometric measures have been used to collect information regarding self­

surveillance and body shame. Tiggemann and Kuring used the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS; McKinley and Hyde, 1996) which was originally developed for use with women whereas Grabe et al used the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale for Youth (OBC-Y; Lindberg, Hyde and McKinley, 2006), an

adaptation o f the original OBCS. Although the OBC-Y has been developed for use with adolescents of both genders, fundamental^ it stems from the OBCS, a measure originally aimed for use with females. Reliability of the OBCS for men has been tested with internal consistencies for the three subscales appearing to be similar to those of women. However, the factor structure of the measure is different between men and women, meaning further replication is required in the psychometric measure for men.

Conclusions drawn due to findings from these measures must therefore be considered with caution as male experiences may not have been adequately captured in either study.

Kahumoku et al (2011) aimed to explore the similarities and differences between body shame, body surveillance and appearance control beliefs and their relationships with depressive symptoms, somatic complaints and suicidal ideation in large samples of female adolescents from differing cultures, with one group from Switzerland and the other from Georgia. They merged these three components to assess overall OBC and found that OBC was a statistically significant predictor of mental health outcomes, suggesting that body shame is one of three factors linked to depressive symptoms, somatic complaints and suicidal ideation. The authors continued to report that no significant differences were found in these relationships across the two samples, leading them to support the concept o f a global OBC construct, which negatively affects the mental wellbeing o f adolescent girls, irrespective of their cultural upbringing. Interesting^ they do not discount OBC as a cultural phenomenon too due to their findings that the Swiss sample reported significantly higher levels o f all three OBC components along with higher levels of reported somatic complaints and suicidal ideation in comparison with the Georgian sample. This provides evidence as to the importance of culturally heterogeneous samples when evaluating other studies.

Although some commonalities and differences have been reported, methodologically there are a number o f common weaknesses observed across the studies. Firstly, all studies mentioned are correlational in design, therefore limiting the ability to make causal links between the variables discussed. Secondly, as previously mentioned, the variables and measures used in these studies vary, with some studies looking at self-objectification alone, some looking at self-objectification via body

surveillance and some looking at OBC as one construct. Although similar conclusions are drawn, it is unclear whether the authors are in feet measuring the same variable.

Similarly, body shame, a fundamental component of the research is measured using differing psychometric tests as some studies utilised the body shame subscale o f the OBCS (McKinley and Hyde, 1996) (Slater & Tiggemann, 2002; 2010; Tiggemann &

Kuring, 2004), some used the OBC-Y and another devised an indirect measure of body shame, focusing on the intensity and frequency in which participants’ wish to alter parts of their body (Noll & Fredrickson, 1998). This therefore creates questions as to whether the same construct is being measured across studies and whether studies can be compared. Homogenous samples pose a third fundamental weakness across the research as all studies stating demographics report a predominant percentage of White Caucasian, educated participants from a medium to high socioeconomic background (Noll & Fredrickson, 1998; Slater & Tiggemann, 2002; 2010). This homogeneity therefore highlights the difficulty in generalising the findings to individuals from other ethnic, social and educational backgrounds.