One might infer from our results that men and
women who self-objectify tend to view exercise as a
means of responding to perceived sociocultural pressure
to achieve an idealised body. However, although
exercise may be considered a positive response to
such pressure because of the related psychological
and health benefits, it appears that individuals who
value exercise for its appearance-enhancing possibilities
may actually be exacerbating the potentially
negative effects of self-objectification, that is, by experiencing
reduced body esteem. In practical terms,
intervention strategies are required to help self-objectifying
men and women change their attitudes
toward exercise. Rather than viewing exercise as a
means of improving their appearance, they should
be persuaded to approach exercise as an opportunity
for experiencing the psychological and health bene-
fits that it offers.
Of course, like the majority of research in this
area, our use of a correlational design means that
we cannot be certain that the directional relationships
we are describing are correct. We have argued
that self-objectification may have a causal impact
on men’s and women’s reasons for exercise, specifically
on those individuals who exercise to improve
their appearance, and that such a motivation for exercise
explains, in turn, why these men and women
are more likely to experience reduced body esteem.
However, it is possible that the individuals in our
study who exercise for appearance-related reasons
are doing so as a response to poor body esteem invoked
as a consequence of self-objectification. It is
also possible that exercising in response to reduced
body esteem contributes to an increased likelihood
of self-objectification. A longitudinal design is required
to provide a satisfactory resolution of the
likely causal relationships.
Finally, we make a brief comment about our
measure of appearance enhancement reasons for exercise.
Although Silberstein et al.’s (1988) Reasons
for Exercise Inventory is widely used and is appropriate
for our sample of both men and women, we surmise
that the partial mediation effect of appearance
enhancement for men may be a function of its applicability
to men. The internal reliability α for this subscale
was .66 for men compared with .88 for women,
which suggests that it is oriented toward women (for
example, items that pertain to weight loss and maintenance
of current weight are arguably less salient to
men than to women). Future researchers might consider
the applicability of measures that have specific
reference to men (e.g., Cafri & Thompson, 2004).