The role of satisfaction with the way you look in 10 to 12-year-olds’ health and subjective well-being across genders and cultures

Few studies have examined the relationship between health and well-being in the general population of children and adolescents from a psychosocial perspective. The present article therefore addresses the following unprecedented twofold objective: (1) to conduct an in-depth analysis of differences in satisfaction with the way you look, satisfaction with health and a global measure of subjective well-being (SWB), by age group (10- and 12-year-olds), gender and country; and (2) to explore to what extent satisfaction with the way you look mediates the relationship between satisfaction with health and a global measure of SWB, and how the relationship between these variables is related to gender and country of origin in the two mentioned age groups. Using a cross-sectional and correlational approach, analyses were conducted using data obtained from a self-administered questionnaire on a sample of 91,076 adolescents from 35 countries belonging to the Children's Worlds 3rd wave dataset. Satisfaction with the way you look was found to mediate the relationship between satisfaction with health and a global measure of SWB, and the variables age, gender and country were identified as being important in this mediation. These findings further our knowledge on the contribution of SWB-related evaluations in these age groups for different countries and genders, but also on the adoption of a broader and more preventive approach to improving them. The relevance of implementing interventions focused on improving self-perception at these ages is discussed.