Frontiers in psychology
Body image and maladaptive eating behaviors in Chinese early adolescents: a latent profile analysis
By Zhang C, Han Y, Cheng S and 1 others.
Abstract
Background
Body image undergoes significant changes during early adolescence, yet empirical evidence on how the combination of negative and positive body image in this stage relates to maladaptive eating behaviors remains limited. To address this, employing a person-centered approach, this study aimed to identify distinct profiles of body image and to explore the relationships between profile membership, gender, body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status (SES), and maladaptive eating behaviors among Chinese early adolescents.
Methods
Using indicators from three dimensions of positive body image (i.e., body self-appreciation, body other-appreciation, resilience against negative appearance feedback) and negative body image (i.e., body dissatisfaction), latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted with a sample of 1,248 junior high school students (aged 12-15 years, M = 13.42, SD = 1.03; 50.4% boys) from Heilongjiang Province, China.