Is My Body Okay? The Impact of Body : Esteem on Patronage Intentions

Abstract

In recent years, notwithstanding the significant decrease of ideal body size, the number of individuals suffering from eating disorder, weight anxiety and social distress has been growing worldwide. As a result, there have been an increasing numbers of attempts to investigate one's body-esteem and its impact on one's behavioral intentions. Specifically, this research studies the impact of body-esteem on patronage intentions in a certain service experience (when shopping at a new store), bringing the scope of the subject into marketing field. Risk taking tendency is proposed as a mediator and perceived similarity among service providers' look as a moderator. The result showed that body-esteem relates positively to patronage intentions, and that risk taking tendency partially mediates the relationship. However, contrary to the hypothesized moderating effect of perceived similarity among service providers, no significant interaction effect was observed.