| 英文摘要 |
Prior research has shown that, the overweight adolescents are more likely to be teased, have worse interactions with peers, and have lower self-esteem. Nevertheless, few research examine whether the mechanisms between body size, peer relation, and self-esteem interact with gender and age. Accordingly, this study use the penal data (N=1,742) drawn from the Taiwan Youth Project and apply cross-lagged panel analysis to examine the association between body mass index (BMI), peer relations, and self-esteem for boys and girls in age 15 and age 18. Results suggest that, the negative association between BMI and self-esteem is more significant for 15-year-old males and 18-year-old females. The indirect negative effect of BMI on self-esteem though peer relation is more significant among 18-year-old female adolescents. However, the association between BMI and self-esteem is not linear. The increase of BMI tend to have negative impacts on self-esteem for the underweight or normal-weight adolescents, but not for the overweight ones. The impact of self-esteem on change of body size is only found significant among female teenagers. |
