Self-Esteem, Body Esteem, and Body-Mass in Late Adolescence: Is a Competence × Importance Model Needed?

Abstract

Junior college students provided measures of self-esteem, body esteem, the importance attributed to three body-esteem domains (weight, appearance, and others' evaluations of one's appearance), and body mass index (BMI). Adolescents who thought weight was important tended to rate their global self-esteem, their appearance, and weight satisfaction low. For women, high BMI predicted low self-ratings of romantic competence. For individuals who regarded weight as important, high BMI predicted low global self-esteem and low self-evaluations of appearance. High BMI also predicted low self-ratings in the two other body-esteem domains, especially for women. Finally, regardless of the importance attributed to body-esteem domains, adolescents with positive feelings about their appearance had high global self-worth.