The Role of Sport Involvement and General Self-Worth in the Interplay between Body Dissatisfaction, Worry, and School Disaffection in Preadolescent Boys and Girls

Abstract

While in recent years there has been increasing research on body dissatisfaction in preadolescence and a small body of research on worry in association with eating disorders, less is known about their effects on school disaffection. Therefore, the current study examined possible gender-specific relations between body dissatisfaction, worry, and school disaffection. To identify possible strategies of intervention and prevention, sport involvement and general self-worth were tested as mediators. Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test for the mediating role of sport involvement and general self-worth in the association between body dissatisfaction, worry, and school disaffection in a sample of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students (; ) in elementary schools in Berlin, Germany. The results suggest that promoting feelings of general self-worth could be an effective starting point in decreasing the association between body dissatisfaction, worry, and school disaffection, in both boys and girls. Conversely, sport involvement was identified as a mediating factor for boys only.