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Lookup NU author(s): Tracey Thornborrow, Dr Elizabeth EvansORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Television consumption influences perceptions of attractive female body size. However, cross-cultural research examining media influence on body ideals is typically confounded by differences in the availability of reliable and diverse foodstuffs. 112 participants were recruited from 3 Nicaraguan villages that differed in television consumption and nutritional status, such that the contribution of both factors could be revealed. Participants completed a female figure preference task, reported their television consumption, and responded to several measures assessing nutritional status. Communities with higher television consumption and/or higher nutritional status preferred thinner female bodies than communities with lower television consumption and/or lower nutritional status. Bayesian mixed models estimated the plausible range of effects for television consumption, nutritional status, and other relevant variables on individual preferences. The model explained all meaningful differences between our low-nutrition villages, and television consumption, after sex, was the most likely of these predictors to contribute to variation in preferences (probability mass >95% when modelling only variables with zero-order associations with preferences, but only 90% when modelling all possible predictors). In contrast, we found no likely link with nutritional status. We thus found evidence that where media access and nutritional status are confounded, media is the more likely predictor of body ideals.
Author(s): Jucker JL, Thornborrow T, Beierholm U, Burt DM, Barton RA, Evans EH, Jamieson MA, Tovée MJ, Boothroyd LG
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Scientific Reports
Year: 2017
Volume: 7
Online publication date: 16/08/2017
Acceptance date: 17/07/2017
Date deposited: 26/09/2017
ISSN (electronic): 2045-2322
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08653-z
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08653-z
PubMed id: 5559456
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