Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Introduction

It is a well-known that increasing numbers of children and adolescents struggle with their participation in PE during elementary school. Paralleling vast physical, cognitive, and social changes due to pubertal maturation, hence greater preoccupation with body image, Swedish schoolchildren receive their first summative grade in PE in school year 6. The present study was designed to explore the relationship between the first grade and changes in children’s’ body satisfaction- and investment across time. A unique feature of the study is that it takes both physical appearance and physical functioning dimensions of body satisfaction- and investment into account.  

Aim and theory

The aim of the study was to explore if the first grade in PE is related to changes in appearance- and functional body image across one school year. We specifically sought out to examine if receiving lower grades has an adverse effect on students’ body satisfaction and investment over time. Theoretically, the study relies on biopsychosocial models of body image, which stresses the importance of different biological, psychological, and social influences for the development of children’s body image (i.e., thoughts, feelings, and behaviors relating to the body). Here, the school context and being graded in PE is considered as an influential social factor.  Two preliminary hypotheses were tested:  

1. Children who have received lower grades will report lower appearance satisfaction, more appearance investment, higher social physical anxiety, and lower functional satisfaction and investment at baseline.  

2. Lower grades will be associated with adverse changes (i.e., decreased appearance satisfaction, increased appearance investment, increased social physique anxiety, and decreased functional satisfaction and investment) in the outcome variables across time.    

Methods

The project builds on a three-way longitudinal design, with an online questionnaire distributed to approximately 500 6th graders (both girls and boys). Participants answered the same questionnaire at three separate occasions: in the beginning (T1) and end of the fall semester (T2), and in the end of the spring semester (T3). Hypothesis 1 was tested by a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using gender and grades as the independent variables and baseline measures of body image as the combined dependent variable. Hypothesis 2 was tested using a series of hierarchical linear regression models, controlling for baseline levels of the outcome variable.  

Results  

Preliminary analyses indicated that students with lower grades had poorer body image at baseline (higher social physique anxiety, lower appearance satisfaction, lower functional satisfaction, and lower functional investment. Regression analyses showed that lower grades were associated with decreases in appearance satisfaction (both girls and boys), functional satisfaction (boys only), and functional investment (both girls and boys) over time. Grades were unrelated to changes in social physique anxiety and appearance investment.  

Discussion and conclusions

This study is the first one showing that being grades in PE may be associated with adverse changes in aesthetic and functional body image over one school year. In view of the curriculum for Swedish compulsory school, stating that PE should promote the development of positive body image, being graded may be counterproductive for students receiving lower grades.