The Reciprocal Associations between Adolescents’ mHealth App Use, Body Dissatisfaction and Physical Self-Worth : A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | A growing emphasis on personal responsibility in managing one’s health and modifiable lifestyle behaviors has garnered much attention in shaping the health discourse in today’s societies (Lupton, 2013). Mobile health (mHealth) apps facilitate the self-tracking of personal health data and are commonly utilized by adolescents to monitor and modify lifestyle behaviors related to physical activity, diet, and weight management (Rideout et al., 2021). Previous research primarily focused on the role of mHealth apps in adolescents’ health-related outcomes (e.g. Emberson et al., 2021). However, quantification of the body through sports activities engaged, weight gain/loss and calories consumed/burned may impact adolescents’ body image perceptions by influencing both positive and negative attitudes toward their bodies. Likewise, adolescents might engage in mHealth apps as a result of how they feel and think about their bodies. Yet, little is known about the association between mHealth app use and attitudes toward one’s body. This prospective study contributed by examining the longitudinal bi-directional associations between adolescents’ mHealth app use, body dissatisfaction, and physical self-worth. A nationally representative sample of adolescents (N =2,500; 50% girls; Mage = 13.43; SD = 1.69) participated in the study and provided data in three waves with six month intervals between 2021 and 2022. We focused on mHealth app usage related to calorie intake and expenditure, weight, and sports activity. We applied the RI-CLPM as an analytical approach to disentangle the within-person and between-person variance to determine the directionality of the associations and used a multigroup model to compare genders. This study provided the first comprehensive information for the longitudinal reciprocal associations between adolescents' attitudes toward their bodies and their mHealth app use in a nationally representative sample of adolescents using a within-person approach. The results revealed a positive within-person effect of mHealth app use on girls' physical self-worth: increased mHealth app use led to higher physical self-worth six months later. However, this effect was not maintained at 12 months. There was no significant increase in physical self-worth at 12 months for the adolescent girls who used mHealth apps more frequently at six months. We found no significant within-person effect of mHealth app usage on body dissatisfaction. We also did not observe a significant effect from body dissatisfaction upon mHealth app use when we examined the reverse relationship. These findings suggest that mHealth apps are unlikely to harm adolescents' attitudes toward their body appearance and physical self-worth. Furthermore, the use of these apps may even contribute to enhancing physical self-worth among adolescent girls. |
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