Body image and maladaptive eating behaviors in Chinese early adolescents: a latent profile analysis

Background

Body image undergoes significant changes during early adolescence, yet empirical evidence on how the combination of negative and positive body image in this stage relates to maladaptive eating behaviors remains limited. To address this, employing a person-centered approach, this study aimed to identify distinct profiles of body image and to explore the relationships between profile membership, gender, body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status (SES), and maladaptive eating behaviors among Chinese early adolescents.