Gender as moderator between self-objectification and perceived health: an exploratory study

Self‑objectification refers to the degree to which people think about and treat their body as an object and underlies the constructs of body surveillance and body shame. It leads to relevant negative outcomes, such as depression, disordered eating, sexual dysfunction, appearance anxiety. Present research aimed at enlarging the study of the consequences of self‑objectification testing: 1) whether body surveillance and body shame affect also self‑rated health; and 2) whether gender moderates this relationship. Participants were 424 adults (50.5% females). Results showed that body shame and body surveillance were not significant predictors of self‑rated health per se, but were relevant when gender was considered as a moderator.