Body appreciation and social anxiety: Exploring within-person associations and the moderating role of physical activity

Previous studies have documented associations between body appreciation and social anxiety, but the direction of their association and the factors that may moderate this association remain unclear. This study employed a three-wave longitudinal design to examine the prospective associations between body appreciation and social anxiety during adolescence and whether physical activity moderated these associations. The final analytic sample included 1276 adolescents (49.3% girls and 50.7% boys; M_age = 12.40 years, SD = 0.54 years). The results revealed bidirectional negative associations between body appreciation and social anxiety over time. Across both longitudinal intervals, physical activity consistently strengthened the negative prospective association between body appreciation and subsequent social anxiety, whereas it attenuated the negative association between social anxiety and later body appreciation only from wave 2 to wave 3. These findings suggest that enhancing body appreciation and encouraging regular physical activity may be meaningful targets for promoting adolescents' mental health. Future research should pay greater attention to adolescents' motivations for and subjective experiences of physical activity, while also extending the investigation of the mechanisms linking body appreciation and social anxiety, in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of these associations.