The moderating effect of school racial/ethnic composition on the relationship between race/ethnicity and weight perception accuracy in U.s. adolescents
The current study examines how the racial/ethnic composition of adolescents’ schools moderates the association between individual race/ethnicity and weight perception accuracy. Prior research has emphasized how the combination of race/ethnicity and gender shape weight perception accuracy but has not adequately addressed whether the racial composition of adolescents’ schoolmates impacts this relationship. I argue that adolescents engage in social comparison with comparison groups that change depending on the racial/ethnic composition of their schoolmates. To examine this, I analyze data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 13,994) collected in 1994-1995. Using hierarchical multinomial logistic regression models, I find that the proportion of White students in schools moderates the relationship between underestimation of weight for boys and overestimation of weight for both boys and girls. These findings offer limited support of social comparison theory but suggest that the racial/ethnic composition of schools does moderate the relationship between race/ethnicity and weight perception under- and overestimation of weight. The findings also suggest that further research should explore what other characteristics adolescents use in comparisons that might shape weight perception accuracy.
