The experience of body shame in children: The role of parental influence in middle childhood and early adolescence

When discussing body shame, the focus tends to be on young adults and teenagers, as individuals in these age groups often present more observable body image issues. However, body shame can also affect children in a similar way as it does adults. In children, body shame has been linked to several short- and long-term consequences affecting their well-being and mental health. Sociocultural models such as the Tripartite Influence Model (Thompson et al., 1999) and Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) offer explanations about how body image concerns, including body shame, may develop. In particular, the Tripartite Influence Model suggests that messages received from family, peers, and the media may shape attitudes toward one’s body image. Instead, Objectification Theory theorizes that body shame might arise when a person is reduced to their body and/or sexual body parts, hence, when there is a heightened focus on their appearance and/or sexual functions. In the present research, we proposed integrating these models to investigate the correlates and antecedents of body shame in children. In particular, this integrated view implied that the sources of children’s body image concerns were outlined from the Tripartite Influence Model: across our empirical investigation, we analyzed the influence of parents on children’s body image concerns and verified its effects when considered together with those of peers and the media. Differently, the message conveyed by the source was tightly linked to Objectification Theory: by adapting measures from the sexual objectification literature, we verified whether greater parents’ emphasis on their children’s body appearance was associated with and predicted higher levels of body shame in children. To test our hypotheses, we conducted four studies with children from Italian primary and middle schools (N = 639), i.e., children in their middle childhood (Studies 1-3) and early adolescence (Study 4). Specifically, Study 1 (N = 195) tested the link between children’s metaperceived parental focus on their appearance and body shame. In Study 2 (N = 163), we replicated and expanded prior results by differentiating the impact of maternal and paternal influence. In Study 3, we strengthened the validity of our findings by recruiting parent-child triads (N = 70) and examining the association between mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported focus on their children’s appearance and body shame in girls and boys. Study 4 (N = 211) adopted a longitudinal approach and investigated the relationship between maternal and paternal influence (along with peer and media pressures) and body shame in early adolescent children over a one-year period. Overall, the results of our studies suggested that parents’ focus on their children’s appearance correlated with girls’ and boys’ body shame. Furthermore, when maternal and paternal influence were tested together, only the relationship between paternal influence and children’s body shame remained significant. Notably, this pattern was consistent when considering both children’s perceptions regarding their parents’ influence (i.e., children’s metaperceptions; Studies 1 & 2) and parents’ self-reported influence (Study 3). Furthermore, during middle childhood, the link between paternal focus on their children’s appearance and body shame in the latter remained significant when considering other sources of influence, including peer and media pressures (Studies 2 & 3). When testing children in early adolescence (Study 4), in line with our prior findings, we found that parental influence was related to their children’s body shame. However, longitudinal analyses revealed that this relation disappeared over time, and only media and peer influence predicted body shame. Importantly, in all our studies, we found that the relationship between parental influence and body shame in children occurred regardless of children’s gender, hence, the role played by parents affected girls and boys to a similar extent. Theoretical and practical implications of our work are discussed in the General discussion section, along with the limitations of our research and the relevant shortcomings of the existing literature