The Relationship between Religiosity and Body Image: A Longitudinal Analysis

• In Event: 336 - Section on Body and Embodiment Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Bodily Representations

Abstract

The relationship between religion and body satisfaction has not been comprehensively studied. While the prior literature on religion and body image has generally supported a positive relationship, investigations have been consistently cross-sectional in nature. Consequently, the possibility remains that religion is simply proxying for a deeper, perhaps less operationalizable background characteristic.
Here we extend the literature by employing a much more rigorous, person-fixed effects design using the National Study of Youth and Religion in order to look at the association between religiosity and body image across time. In general, these results support the literature’s positive finding for a relationship between religiosity and body image for women. While there are some hints of a relationship for men, it is not robust to the inclusion of control variables.

Authors

• Stephen Cranney, University of Pennsylvania

• Krista Cline, Butler University