From Fat to Fabulous

Using the National Longitudinal Study for Adolescent Health (Add­Health) this study investigated six hypotheses assessing the relation­ship between adolescent body mass and self-esteem. Specifically this study sought to identify whether elective coping mechanisms in­cluding academic performance extracurricular participation and vo­luntarism mediated the relationship between body mass and self-esteem. A variety of statistical methods (including regression and path analyses) revealed that the relationship between adolescent body mass and self-esteem was suppressed by intervening variables in­cluding negative body image and academic performance. When con­trolling for academic performance and body image adolescents with higher body mass exhibit higher self-esteem than those adolescents with lower body mass at the stringent p> .001 level. The implication of the finding of higher body mass being related to higher self-esteem when controlling for negative body image and academic per­formance is enough to give pause. Perception of acceptance of those of varying body sizes may protect a growing group of adolescents from diminished self-esteem.