Citation

O'Brien JE, Li W, Burton DL. J. Child Sex. Abus. 2015; 24(8): 922-942.

Affiliation

Smith College School for Social Work , Northampton , Massachusetts , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10538712.2015.1092004

PMID

26701282

Abstract

Using a large sample of adjudicated delinquent male youth (N = 696), we compared data from youth who had been adjudicated for sexually aggressive crimes and those who had been adjudicated for nonsexual offenses on eating dysfunction, body disapproval, history of sexual abuse, and pornography exposure. The sample included 526 (75.8%) youth adjudicated for sexual offenses and 170 (24.4%) youth adjudicated for nonsexual crimes. The average age of the sample was 16.8 years (SD = 1.6), and approximately half of the sample (47.7%, n = 310) self-identified as White. The results of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that sexually aggressive youth scored significantly higher than nonsexually offending youth on both eating dysfunction and body disapproval measures. Pornography exposure and substance use predicted body disapproval and eating dysfunction in the entire sample of adjudicated youth. History of sexual abuse was a significant predictor of body disapproval in all adjudicated youth but was not a significant predictor of eating dysfunction. Implications for research and practice are offered.

Keywords: Juvenile justice;

Language: en