The cost of celebrity worship: a longitudinal study of sports celebrity worship, appearance perfectionism, and generalized anxiety disorder in college students

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal relationships among sports celebrity worship, appearance perfectionism and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) among college students. The levels of sports celebrity worship, appearance perfectionism and GAD were assessed in 593 college students at two time points (T1 and T2), six months apart, using a self-report survey. Cross-lagged modeling was applied to examine the potential causal relationships among the three variables, with SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 used for statistical analysis. The results indicated that sports celebrity worship had a stable, positive association across time on both appearance perfectionism and GAD, whereas appearance perfectionism had a stable, positive association across time on GAD. These results suggest the negative psychological effects of sports celebrity worship and physical appearance perfectionism on college students, clarify the influence mechanisms of college students' GAD, and provide evidence-based recommendations.