Poster #207 - The Mediating Role of Depressive Symptoms Between Body Dissatisfaction and Sleep Disturbance in Adolescent Females

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Background: Body dissatisfaction is a serious concern among adolescent females (Stice & Whitenton, 2002), with nearly 50% of adolescent girls reporting low levels of satisfaction with their bodies (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2002). Over time, body dissatisfaction is a predictor of negative outcomes like unhealthy dieting, binge eating (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006) and depression (Stice & Bearman, 2001). In adolescence, depressive symptoms are common (25% of females) and associated with negative outcomes (Saluja et al., 2004). Given its strong association with depressive symptoms, body dissatisfaction may be related to psychological outcomes beyond eating behavior. While many studies have addressed the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating behaviors, little research has considered the role of body dissatisfaction in other healthy behaviors, such as sleep.
Sleep disturbance is also an area of emphasis for adolescence researchers worldwide (Gradisar et al., 2001). Sleep disturbance, particularly insufficient sleep, is associated with a number of health and psychological concerns, such as anxiety, depression, attentional problems, and substance use problems (Gregory & Sadeh, 2012; Johnson & Breslau, 2001). Approximately 25% of adolescents report symptoms of insomnia (Ohayon et al., 2000) over 50% of college students report poor quality sleep (Lund et al., 2010; Vargas et al., 2014). This is concerning, as healthy sleep habits are associated with positive health behaviors such as healthy eating and exercise (Harris et al., 2003).
Given the strong relationship between depressive symptoms and both body dissatisfaction and sleep disturbance, the current study seeks to if body dissatisfaction predicts sleep disturbance among adolescent girls. Further, we will examine if depression mediates this relationship.
Methods: Participants included 100 adolescent girls (Mage = 14.40 years, SD = 2.31) recruited from a college town in the Midwest USA. The teens completed the Brief Symptoms Inventory (Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1983), Body Dissatisfaction Scale (Garner et al., 1983), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al., 1989), and demographic items including age, height, and weight. All measures have satisfactory reliability.
Results: We examined the hypotheses that body dissatisfaction would predict sleep quality and that depressive symptoms would mediate this relationship. All study variables were moderately correlated with one another (.39 - .41, see Table 1). Results indicated that body dissatisfaction significantly predicted sleep disturbance. Significance of the indirect effect was examined using bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals (Nbootstraps = 5000). Results showed depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between body dissatisfaction and sleep disturbance, CI95% = .08 to .81, controlling for age and body mass index percentile. The unstandardized path coefficients and standard errors are presented in Figure 1.
Discussion: These results highlight the far-reaching impact of body image concerns on psychological and health outcomes among adolescent girls. Within this population, body dissatisfaction is related to sleep disturbances via depressive symptoms as a mediator. High levels of body dissatisfaction may contribute to overall low mood and depressive symptoms, which is independently related to difficulty falling or staying asleep. It is important to recognize the cross-sectional nature of this study, and further research is necessary to understand directionality between variables.

Authors

• Ellen Hart, Eastern Michigan University
  Presenting Author

• Chong Man Chow, Eastern Michigan University
  Non-Presenting Author