Body shame among Asian American college women: the roles of sexual objectification, internalized racism, and ethnic identity strength

ABSTRACT Informed by objectification theory’s tenet that sexual objectification and racism are powerful sociocultural forces that perniciously impact women of color’s mental health, the present study examined the longitudinal links of sexual objectification and three forms of internalized racism (i.e. self-negativity, weakness stereotype, appearance bias) with body shame among Asian American college women (N = 146). Ethnic identity strength, a theorized protective factor in body image literature, was examined as a moderator for the hypothesized longitudinal links. Results indicated that sexual objectification and self-negativity measured at Time 1 had significant and positive bivariate associations with body shame measured at Time 2. However, these variables no longer predicted body shame when body mass index (BMI) was included as a covariate. A significant interaction between appearance bias and ethnic identity strength emerged in predicting body shame. Specifically, high ethnic identity strength exacerbated the detrimental effect of appearance bias on Asian American women’s body shame, whereas low ethnic identity strength buffered this effect. This finding contradicts theoretical views of ethnic identity strength as a protective factor in women of color’s body image development. Practice implications and future research directions are discussed.