Body Image Concerns Among South Korean Kindergarteners and Relationships to Parental, Peer, and Media Influences

This study examined weight concerns and body dissatisfaction among female kindergarteners and assessed their relationships to body mass index (BMI) and parental, peer, and media influences. A total of 90 girls in South Korea were recruited and two-step cluster analysis was used to examine body image concerns and their association with diverse factors. The findings demonstrate that girls as young as 5-6 years of age are concerned about their current weight and desired to be thinner. These body image issues had a significant association with peer influence and exposure to Korean pop music (Kpop) TV programs. In particular, extensive exposure to appearance-focused media such as Kpop TV programs could be a concern due to their emphasis on physical appearance and potential to influence children's beauty standards. Parents and educators may need to raise awareness of the prevalence of thin-idealized images in the media and the role of media in girls' body image development. Research in this scholarly domain has focused on older generations, mainly women and adolescent girls, and thus, a limited number of studies have examined children at this stage of life. The findings of this study add to a growing body of literature on body image perceptions by focusing on early school-aged children.