ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Sport and Exercise Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1668374
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of Nutritional Interventions in Optimizing Exercise Outcomes and RecoveryView all articles
Nutrition Knowledge, Attitudes Towards Physical Activity and Malnutrition as Predictors of Social Appearance Anxiety: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach
Provisionally accepted
Fatih Harun Turhan1*
Uğur İnce2Mehmet Özkeskin3Numan Bahadır Kayışoğlu1Mehmet Ali Öztürk1
Nur Elvan Koç Doğan1
Musa Kızıltaş1
Berkay Karagöz1- 1Karabuk Universitesi, Karabük, Türkiye
- 2Harran Universitesi, Şanlıurfa, Türkiye
- 3Kutahya Dumlupinar Universitesi, Kütahya, Türkiye
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Background: Social appearance anxiety (SAA) has emerged as a critical psychosocial concern among young adults, influenced by various behavioral and cognitive factors. Despite growing recognition of the role of health literacy, limited research has examined how nutrition knowledge may influence SAA through indirect pathways. Objective:This study aimed to examine the predictive role of nutrition knowledge on social appearance anxiety, with a particular focus on the mediating effects of physical activity attitudes and malnutrition. Methods: A cross-sectional design with a convenience sample of 338 university-level athletes (Mage = 22.04, SD = 3.46) was employed. Participants completed validated measures of nutrition knowledge, attitudes towards physical activity, malnutrition, and SAA. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyze direct and indirect pathways. Model fit indices and bootstrapping methods were used to test mediation effects. Results: Nutrition knowledge was negatively associated with SAA (β = -0.19, p < .001). However, this direct relationship lost significance when physical activity attitudes and malnutrition were introduced as parallel mediators. Mediation analysis revealed significant indirect effects of nutrition knowledge on SAA through both physical activity attitudes (β = -0.30, p < .001) and malnutrition (β = -0.42, p < .001), supporting a full mediation model. The final model explained 27% of the variance in social appearance anxiety and demonstrated satisfactory fit indices (e.g., RMSEA = 0.065; CFI = 0.93). Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of targeting both behavioral (physical activity) and physiological (malnutrition) mediators when addressing the impact of nutrition knowledge on social appearance anxiety. Interventions designed to reduce SAA should incorporate components that enhance nutritional literacy and promote positive lifestyle behaviors to improve mental and physical well-being among young adults.
Keywords: Social appearance anxiety1, nutrition knowledge2, Physical Activity Attitudes3, malnutrition4, structural equation modeling5
Received: 17 Jul 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Turhan, İnce, Özkeskin, Kayışoğlu, Öztürk, Koç Doğan, Kızıltaş and Karagöz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fatih Harun Turhan, fharunturhan@karabuk.edu.tr
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