Institute of Psychology, University of Gdańsk, Bażyńskiego 4, 80-309, Gdańsk, Poland.
Department of Psychology, Gdańsk University of Physical Education and Sport, Gdańsk, Poland.
BMC Pediatr. 2022 Jun 11;22(1):339. doi: 10.1186/s12887-022-03396-x.
Obesity is considered to be one of the most important factors reducing the sense of happiness and satisfaction with life, especially among women. This belief already exists in middle childhood, as the preschool period is a crucial point in the development of attitudes towards beauty. Preschoolers can identify physically attractive individuals, and they might already form attributions regarding the looks of adults (especially women), which in turn may constitute a foundation for their future concept of beauty-related happiness. Children's attitudes towards the body are also strongly influenced by the content of gender stereotypes that prescribe and proscribe what women and men should look like. In our study, we aimed to analyse the relationship between associations of obesity and happiness made by preschool girls and boys (5-year-olds).
A total of 680 families with five-year-old children (329 girls, 351 boys; M = 5.7 years) and both parents took part in the study. Children's associations of different types of body sizes with perceptions of happiness were measured with the Beauty & Health pictorial scale.
Our results indicate that obese bodies were seen as unattractive, independent of gender (p < .001). Children associated looks with happiness-the body type identified as the most physically attractive was also seen as a happiest person. Lowest happiness scores were also ascribed to obese body types, but girls assessed men with a normal body type as happier than boys (t = 2.87, p = .004).
Female bodies are already perceived along gender stereotypical lines at the age of 5, and are also related to potential predictions concerning women's happiness. Children assessed female individuals with slim bodies, as well as those with normal weight, as happier than obese females.
肥胖被认为是降低幸福感和生活满意度的最重要因素之一，尤其是对女性而言。这种观念在儿童中期就已经存在，因为学前阶段是形成对美的态度的关键时期。学龄前儿童能够识别具有吸引力的个体，他们可能已经对成年人（尤其是女性）的外貌形成了归因，而这反过来又可能构成他们未来对与美丽相关的幸福的概念基础。儿童对身体的态度也受到性别刻板印象内容的强烈影响，这些刻板印象规定了男女应该是什么样子。在我们的研究中，我们旨在分析学龄前女孩和男孩（5 岁）对肥胖和幸福的关联。
共有 680 个有 5 岁孩子的家庭（329 名女孩，351 名男孩；M=5.7 岁）和父母双方都参与了这项研究。儿童对不同体型与幸福感的关联是通过《美丽与健康》图片量表来衡量的。
我们的研究结果表明，肥胖的身体被认为是不吸引人的，无论性别如何（p<.001）。儿童将外表与幸福感联系起来——被认为最具吸引力的体型也被认为是最幸福的人。最低的幸福感评分也归因于肥胖体型，但女孩认为正常体型的男性比男孩更幸福（t=2.87，p=.004）。
女性的身体在 5 岁时就已经按照性别刻板印象来感知，而且与女性幸福的潜在预测有关。儿童评估苗条体型的女性个体，以及体重正常的女性个体，比肥胖的女性更幸福。
