Thesis (M.S.)--University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2020
Includes bibliographical references
Exercise has the potential to produce positive, healthy effects in individuals who engage in it. Exercise can also have detrimental effects, however, when it is excessive, compulsive, or functioning as compensation. Body related media has been shown to predict unhealthy behaviors such as disordered eating, muscle dysmorphia, and unhealthy exercise. Exposure to such media is ubiquitous, however, and many do not experience detrimental effects. It may be that body image flexibility, or one's willingness to have unpleasant experiences of the body in order to pursue valued actions, accounts for this variability. Body image flexibility has been shown to act as a protective factor against risk factors for eating disorders like low BMI, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating cognitions. Body image flexibility may similarly buffer the negative impact of media exposure on unhealthy exercise, such that those high in body image flexibility show little to no difference in unhealthy exercise when exposed to body-related media. The current study did not observe a moderating effect of body image flexibility on the relationship between mass media and unhealthy exercise. However, body image flexibility was shown to predict certain unhealthy exercise behaviors, further expanding its role beyond simply body image related issues. Several implications for future directions on how to best measure unhealthy exercise and the role of body image flexibility are discussed
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2021
