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Body Image and in Adolescence

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Stuti Joshi
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5 views

Body Image and in Adolescence

Uploaded by

Stuti Joshi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Body image in Adolescence

Body image in adolescence

Body image relates to how people think and feel about their own body. It relates to a person's

perceptions, feelings, and thoughts about his or her body and is usually conceptualized as

incorporating body size estimation, evaluation of body attractiveness, and emotions

associated with body shape and size.

Role of Culture, society and media with body image

A variety of cultural, social, physical, and psychological changes that characterize

adolescence uniquely interact to shape body image between the ages of 12 years and 18

years. Our appearance-oriented culture often targets teens as potential consumers and has a

significant negative impact on their body image.

 In their meta-analysis, Groesz et al. found that the greatest decline in body satisfaction

occurred in girls under the age of 19 following exposure to overtly thin media

images.

 Recent studies indicate that current diet, exercise, and beauty trends displayed in

reality television shows and social media outlets can contribute to unhealthy

adolescent body perceptions.

 These cultural ideals and beliefs are also reinforced by significant others in

adolescents’ immediate environments, including family, peers, and romantic partners.

 Relative to family, research has shown that weight-based teasing from parents and

siblings is associated with body dissatisfaction among girls and drive for muscularity

among boys in eighth and ninth grade.

 For girls, cultural expectations emphasize being thin and lean with large breasts as

seen in print media, television, and online. Thus, changes associated with puberty,
such as increases in adiposity and widening of the hips, may be perceived negatively

and seen as incongruent with the prototypical and societally valued “thin ideal.”

 Boys are not immune to body image concerns during adolescent development.

Specifically, increases in height and muscle mass associated with puberty moves

some boys closer to cultural expectations to be tall and muscular. Late-maturing

boys specifically, who have not achieved socially constructed body ideals for men,

report greater body dissatisfaction than their early maturing counterparts.

In Indian Scenario

 Body image consciousness and attempts to change weight are being witnessed more

among adolescents in urban India than in rural India.

 It has been observed that Indian female adolescents are more consciousness to control

their weight by restricting diet rather than doing physical exercise .

 Body image perception of young girls is found to be influenced by maternal

educational status, wherein higher percentage of girls with illiterate mothers perceived

themselves to be overweight.

 In a research in Rural Tamil Nadu Among both the school and college students, the

results appeared to be similar, that is, males had higher body dissatisfaction than

females. This is contradictory to previous literature of girls reporting greater

body dissatisfaction than boys, both in cross-sectional studies and over the course

of adolescence (longitudinal studies).

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