Korean J Community Nutr.  1997 May;2(2):197-205.

A Survey of Adolescents' Concern and Perception about Body Image

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Food Science, Miryang National University, Kyungnam, Korea.

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate adolescents' body size and their concerns and perceptions about body image. Group means of heights and weights were 171.5cm and 60.3kg for boys and 159.3cm and 52.3Kg for girls. Body Mass Index(BMI) of the subjects were 20.5 for boys and 20.6 for girls. Only 11.5% of subjects were overweight or obese, however 42.5% of subjects had experienced weight control, and the main reason for weight control was to lose weight(80.6%). In concern for body image and frequency of eating distrubance ; females had more concern than males, the group who had attempted weight control had more concern than those who had not, and the group who were overweight had more concern than those who were under and normal weight. In perception about body image, using a set of nine figure drawings arranged from very thin to very heavy figures, subjects rated their current figure, considered figure(how they appeared to others), ideal figure, and attractive figure. For boys, the current, ideal, and most attractive figures were almost identical, but for girls, the ideal figure was significantly thinner than current figure and attractive figure was significantly thinner than current figure. The greater the preference for thinner figure as idal and attractive figure, the higher the concern for body image and frequency of eating distrubance. Thus it seems that a distorted perception of ideal body size affects adolescents' concern for body image and eating behaviors.

Keyword

adolescents; BMI; body image; idal figure

MeSH Terms

Adolescent
Body Image*
Body Size
Eating
Feeding Behavior
Female
Humans
Male
Overweight
Weights and Measures
Full Text Links
  • KJCN
Actions
Cited
CITED
export Copy
Close
Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
Similar articles
Copyright © 2024 by Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors. All rights reserved.     E-mail: koreamed@kamje.or.kr