Body image and binge eating in emerging adulthood: The roles of motivational and selfevaluative salience, and body image satisfaction

Basing on the multidimensional construct of body image by Cash and colleagues, the present study proposed a moderated mediation model to explain the relationships of two appearance self-schemas: self -evaluative salience and motivational salience ( X-1 ; X-2 ), with body image satisfaction ( M ) and binge eating ( Y ), hypothesizing the moderation role of gender ( W ). Participants were 559 emerging adults (18-24 years; 79.6% women) who completed an online anonymous survey. Self -evaluative salience positively predicted binge eating , whilst motivational salience was a negative predictor. Moreover, only for women (but not for men) body image satisfaction was a significant mediator in the relationships between each of the appearance schemas and binge eating . These results suggest interesting implications for research and educational practice.