“…Although the theorized associations among the objectification theory latent variables are consistent with outcomes of prior cross-sectional studies employing non-clinical samples of adults (see [28,29,32,34] for reviews) and adolescents of both genders [47][48][49], to our knowledge, this was the first study that has examined prospectively and supported the theoretical underpinnings of objectification theory, following participants through the period of greatest risk for the emergence and growth of eating pathology [1][2][3][4][5][12][13][14]. While boys may not necessarily experience evaluation of their bodies to the same extent as girls in the interpersonal context [27,28], there is increasing evidence that boys are similarly over-stimulated by unrealistic body shape ideals and objectified in contemporary mass media [19,26,30,38,40,77].…”