Understanding body image perception and body image discontentment in early adolescence

Abstract

Background: The mounting trends of beauty perceptions have contributed to distorted body image among adolescents. This demands understanding about current pointers of body image satisfaction to prevent eating disorders associated with mismanagement of weight in adolescents. Aim & Objective: The objectives of this cross-sectional study were to apprehend body image perception and dissatisfaction among adolescents (12-14years) across the genders and associate it with their actual BMI along with identifying the factors influencing body image perception. Settings and Design: A structured questionnaire was developed and administered on randomly selected 112 adolescents (68% boys & 34% girls, 12-14 years), mean age=12.8 ±0.45 from urban coeducational school of western India. Anthropometric measurements were taken with standardized tools and BMI z-scores were calculated. The actual and perceived weight was compared using paired t-test and descriptive statistics. Association between body image indicators, gender, and BMI were assessed using Chi-square test and One-way ANOVA. Factor analysis was done by Principal component analysis. Results: There was a significant difference in the perceived (M=2.31, SD=0.93) and actual BMI (M=1.96, SD=0.69), p=0.002. A significant association between gender and the influence of media idols, discrimination due to physical appearance and BMI was observed (p≤.0.005). Self-perception and judgements of others, behaviors related with self-fixation, social influence and inappropriate dietary practices and comparison with models and actors were the emerging factors identified. Conclusion: The body image perception was distorted among adolescents of both sexes, with higher body image discontent shown by girls. The perceived body image, when compared with their BMI was found to be incongruent across sexes.

Urbanization and eating disorders: a scoping review of studies from 2019 to 2020

“…Studies in urban areas of Asia and Africa [9,13,15,16,20,34] compared with rural [10] did support the view that there is a ‘rise of eating disorders’ [1] in these regions with increased development. Further all but one study constituted adolescents or young people and the majority were of women or girls.…”

“…Bittman et al's [21] research highlighted how some populations, for example, Australia, are so highly urbanized it may not really be possible to study urban/rural differences, which may explain the negative findings in the Australian studies [19 & ,24-26]. Studies in urban areas of Asia and Africa [9,13,15,16,20,34] compared with rural [10] did support the view that there is a 'rise of eating disorders' [1] in these regions with increased development. Further all but one study constituted adolescents or young people and the majority were of women or girls.…”

“…Excepting the Gorrell et al [4] review, the remaining 16 articles were all epidemiologic studies reporting on eating disorders from diverse populations. Three were published before December 2018; and 16 primary research full-text articles were included; 10 from Asia or Africa [8–10,11,12 ▪▪ ,13–17] and 6 from Europe/Australia/North America [18 ▪▪ ,19 ▪ ,20–22,23 ▪▪ ,24]. Two [22,24] had published their data on urbanicity elsewhere [23 ▪▪ ,25,26].…”

“…Two [22,24] had published their data on urbanicity elsewhere [23 ▪▪ ,25,26]. Two studies were from only rural areas [10,15] and 8 from only urban [9,11,13,14,16,17,20,21] areas. Six [8,12 ▪▪ ,18 ▪▪ ,22,23 ▪▪ ,24–26] studies provided published and one unpublished [19 ▪ ] information contrasting the frequency of eating disorders/disordered eating across urban and rural environments (Table 1).…”

“…Adolescents ( n = 112, 34% girls, aged 12–14 years) from middle-income urban area of India also self-reported perceived over weight (29%) and body dissatisfaction (48%, girls 79%, boys 38%) [15]. Fifty percent of 2000 middle-class adolescents (mean age 15 years) in Mumbai schools [16] reported binge eating on the Binge Eating Scale (BES) [30]. Similarly, in a ‘semi-urban’ district of Malaysia [13] 6248 adolescents (mean age 14.7 years; 53% girls) self-reported high levels of eating disorder behaviours (25%), body part dissatisfaction (24%), and body size dissatisfaction (28%).…”