An association between body image dissatisfaction and digit ratio among Chinese children and adolescents

Abstract Body image dissatisfaction (BID) is a negative evaluation of personal physical characteristics, including dissatisfaction with body shape, gender, sexual organs, appearance and so forth, and it plays an important role in growth and development. The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is re...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Yongting Yuan, Jingyao Hu, Lili Sun, Yifei Zhang, Bangxuan Wang, Rongying Yao, Hui Han, Lianguo Fu
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/854e1f1f4d724b7a855fa3ab5c0b32cc
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract Body image dissatisfaction (BID) is a negative evaluation of personal physical characteristics, including dissatisfaction with body shape, gender, sexual organs, appearance and so forth, and it plays an important role in growth and development. The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is recognized as a putative indicator of intra-uterine testosterone to estrogen ratio exposure, and it has been observed that higher levels of fetal testosterone exposure are associated with a lower 2D:4D. The present paper contributes to a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of BID by analyzing BID and the digit ratio (2D:4D). We found that the 2D:4D was positively related to appearance dissatisfaction in boys with first spermatorrhea, which means that low prenatal androgen exposure may increase boys’ dissatisfaction with their appearance. In girls with breast development being lower than Tanner stage II, their 2D:4D was negatively related to their body shape dissatisfaction, which means that high prenatal androgen exposure may increase girls’ dissatisfaction with their body shape. These results suggest that the prenatal androgen exposure level might play an important role in the body image dissatisfaction of the offspring.