Body talk and perfectionism in female and male youth: can we shift the focus from appearance to functionality?

Abstract

The current study sought to examine if perfectionism facets that have been linked to body image disturbances in youth predict a higher frequency of body talk with friends, and whether these perfectionistic predispositions influence the extent to which novel educational interventions mitigate the harmful effects of body talk exposure such as lower body satisfaction, self-esteem, higher negative affect and self-objectification. The educational interventions provided education on the dangers of body talk, the opportunity to practice challenging body talk, and exercises to help youth shift away from the harmful appearance focus by appreciating body functionality. An online international sample of youth who self-identified as either female (N = 120) or male (N = 158) between the ages of 13 and 24 years were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 educational intervention conditions that either focused on only body talk, body functionality, both body talk and body functionality, or they received no intervention. Overall, the findings demonstrated that perfectionistic predispositions can influence the degree to which educational interventions might mitigate the effects of body talk exposure. Females higher in perfectionism facets sometimes did not receive the same benefits from the body talk focused interventions as females lower in perfectionism, whereas males higher in certain perfectionism facets at times received benefits from the body functionality intervention. Moreover, female and male youth with higher levels of perfectionistic predispositions were more likely to report engaging in body talk with friends as well as having worse experiences after being exposed to body talk. The results are discussed in terms of future directions.