The mediating effects of body comparison and body shame between socially prescribed perfectionism and bulimic symptoms among female college students

Abstract

This study investigated the mechanism of the relation between socially prescribed perfectionism and bulimic symptoms among 272 female college students in South Korea. Specially, it was examined whether body comparison and body shame mediates the impact of socially prescribed perfectionism on bulimic symptoms, using Structural Equation Modeling. The results indicated that both body comparison and body shame mediate the relation between socially prescribed perfectionism and bulimic symptoms. There were two paths identified. One path showed that socially prescribed perfectionism increases body shame which, in turn, leads to increases in bulimic symptoms. The other path indicated that body comparison mediates the relation between socially prescribed perfectionism and body shame, with body shame increasing bulimic symptoms. These findings suggest that the excessive desire for social recognition and status cause bulimic symptoms through body comparison and body shame in females.