Body Esteem: The Relationship Between Father Involvement, Nurturant Father and Young Adults’ Body Image Perception

This study aims to investigate the relationship between father involvement, nurturant fathering and body esteem perception among young adults. A quantitative research design was utilized, and descriptive and inferential analysis were conducted. The objective of the study is to (i) identify the level of nurturant fathering among young adults, (ii) identify the level of father involvement among young adults, (iii) identify the body esteem perception among young adults, (iv) examine the relationship between nurturant fathering and body esteem perception of young adults, (v) investigate the relationship between father involvement and body esteem perception of young adults. The respondents of this study were the 108 counselling students between the age of 18 to 26 years old from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. A questionnaire was distributed among the students which consists of Nurturant Fathering Scale (NFS), Father Involvement Scale (FIS) and Body Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults (BESAA). The data that was collected were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0. The findings of the research showed that the nurturant fathering shows a mean of 29.64 with an SD of 11.78 which is falls under the norm. The father involvement scale shows the highest mean for the instrumental subscale (M = 29.05, SD = 8.41). Meanwhile, the body esteem scale shows the highest mean for the BE-Appearance subscale at M = 19.87, SD = 10.07. There is a significant relationship between nurturant fathering (r = 0.473) and father involvement (r = 0.433) on the body esteem perception of young adults. The findings of the study bring about implications and possible recommendations for future research in the field of fatherhood.