Weight status and body image perceptions in adolescents: current perspectives

Abstract

Adolescence represents a pivotal stage in the development of positive or negative body image. Many influences exist during the teen years including transitions (eg, puberty) that affect one’s body shape, weight status, and appearance. Weight status exists along a spectrum between being obese (ie, where one’s body weight is in the 95th percentile for age and gender) to being underweight. Salient influences on body image include the media, which can target adolescents, and peers who help shape beliefs about the perceived body ideal. Internalization of and pressures to conform to these socially prescribed body ideals help to explain associations between weight status and body image. The concepts of fat talk and weight-related bullying during adolescence greatly contribute to an overemphasis on body weight and appearance as well as the development of negative body perceptions and dissatisfaction surrounding specific body parts. This article provides an overview of the significance of adolescent development in shaping body image, the relationship between body image and adolescent weight status, and the consequences of having a negative body image during adolescence (ie, disordered eating, eating disorders, and dysfunctional exercise). Practical implications for promoting a healthy weight status and positive body image among adolescents will be discussed.

Misperception of weight status in the pacific: preliminary findings in rural and urban 11- to 16-year-olds of New Caledonia

“…Accurate self-perception of weight status needs a well-calibrataed reference image. For adolescent girls, thinness has become the ideal body type, and this often unrealistic body type is the standard by which many of these adolescents define themselves and others [41]. Given that female bodily attractiveness is associated with an unrealistic thin body type, many adolescent girls feel overweight with a normal weight [42].…”

Examining the psychometric properties of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 in Brazilian adolescents

“…First, no study to date has so far examined the psychometric proprieties of the instrument in adolescent population. This lack of research in the literature is somehow surprising, mainly, considering that adolescence is a critical period in the development of both negative and positive body image (Voelker, Reel, & Greenleaf, 2015). Second, the association between weight status and body image has been extensively documented.…”

Health behaviours as mediators of relationships between the actual image and real and ideal images of one’s own body

“…Body self-assessment is a significant element of creating own identity for both boys and girls as well as young women and men [22]. Simultaneously, it is worth mentioning that the level of body self-assessment in adolescents is conditioned by numerous factors, including social, cultural and physical [23] and personality-based factors as, for instance, the sense of coherence [24].…”