Growing Up Self-Conscious: Developmental Perspectives on Body Image, Embodiment, and Restrictive Eating in Childhood

Body image develops within a complex interplay of interpersonal and sociocultural influences. The tripartite model highlights family, peers, and media as key contributors to body-related experiences, yet much of the existing research has focused on adolescents and adults. Childhood represents a critical developmental period during which perceptions, attitudes, and experiences related to the body begin to emerge, but our understanding of these processes remains limited. One important challenge is the assessment of body image in childhood, as existing measures are often adapted from older populations and may not adequately capture children’s experiences. At the same time, emerging evidence suggests that attachment relationships, peer dynamics, media exposure, and significant life events may play important roles in shaping children’s body image, embodiment, and eating-related behaviors.

This symposium brings together four presentations that advance knowledge on children’s body image development. The first presentation addresses a fundamental challenge in the field by validating a measure of body image issues in children, providing evidence for its reliability and developmental appropriateness. The second presentation examines the associations between parent–child attachment security, preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies, and embodiment in middle childhood, highlighting relational pathways that may contribute to children’s experiences of their bodies. The third presentation adopts a longitudinal perspective to investigate body image development in middle childhood, focusing on changes over time and the role of life events and social media use in shaping body image outcomes. Finally, the fourth presentation explores the peer context by examining how classroom appearance norms influence children’s body image and restrictive eating behaviors, shedding light on the social processes through which appearance-related values become linked to popularity and peer status.

Together, these presentations illustrate the multifaceted nature of body image, embodiment, and restrictive eating in childhood and emphasize the importance of integrating measurement, attachment, life experiences, media influences, and peer environments. The symposium brings together two presentations from a research team in Poland and two from a research team in Canada, while drawing on data collected in Poland, Canada, and the United States. This international perspective provides a unique opportunity to examine how children’s body-related experiences develop across different cultural contexts. By adopting a developmental and cross-national perspective, the symposium aims to deepen theoretical understanding and inform prevention and intervention efforts targeting body image concerns and related outcomes in childhood.