Relationships between self-compassion and body image satisfaction, body-mass index, age and parental attitudes

Abstract

The first aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between self-compassion and body image satisfaction and between self-compassion and body mass index (BMI) while the second aim of the study is to show whether there are significant mean differences in the self-compassion scores among distinct groups of age (19-24 and 25-30), parental attitude (authoritarian, protective, democratic, inconsistent), BMI (underweight, normal, overweight) and body image satisfaction (low and high) in a sample of Turkish female university students. The participants of the study consisted of 443 female volunteers aged between 19-30. Participants completed Personal Information Form, Self-Compassion Scale and Body Perception Scale respectively. The data was collected via the internet. For the purposes of the study, Pearson correlation analysis, independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed. The results indicated positive and statistically significant relationship between self-compassion and body image satisfaction and negative but statistically insignificant relationship between self-compassion and BMI. Regarding between groups analyses, the results showed that there are significant mean differences between different groups of parental attitude and body image satisfaction in terms of self-compassion scores while no such significant mean differences were found for different groups of age and BMI. In accordance with the relevant literature, the current findings were discussed and suggestions for future research and counseling practice were given.