Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Psychological Studies
ISSN 0033-2968
Psychol Stud
DOI 10.1007/s12646-014-0268-4
1 23
1 23
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Body Image and its Relation with the Concept of Physical Self
Among Adolescents and Young Adults
Rituparna Chakraborty & Sonali De
Introduction
Body may be considered as one of the media of selfexpression and it is through the fashioning of ones body that
individuals become selves. However, the view about body
is no more confined to the thinking that it as a product of
nature or as possession of the self; it is rather being
reconfigured by market forces. Body can be considered to
be the site of uncontrollable desires kept under control through
the use of heterogeneous discourses, a site where different
discourses are practiced and contested. There is an illusion of
a substantial unity about body, but bodies are always subject
to change and can never be regarded as natural (Foucault,
R. Chakraborty
Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, 92, Acharya
Prafulla Chandra Rd, Kolkata 700009, India
e-mail: crituparna02@yahoo.in
S. De (*)
Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta, 92, Acharya
Prafulla Chandra Rd, Kolkata 700009, India
e-mail: sonalide2002@yahoo.com
Methods
Participants
The participants were 120 individuals equally drawn from two
age (adolescent and young adult) and gender groups. The
adolescents (Mean age: Boys 15.26 yrs., SD=0.75; Girls=
15.40 yrs., SD=0.92) were chosen from a renowned school of
Calcutta. The young adults (Mean age: Males: 23.5 yrs., SD=
1.2; Female: 23.17, SD=0.83) were students of university
post-graduate departments. All the participants were free from
eating disorder or any other major physical or psychological
ailment and had normal weight range (decided by calculating
their BMI and comparing it to the norm of WHO), of middle
socio-economic status and all were students.
Measures
Body Image The Body Image Assessment Scale, developed
by Williamson et al. (1989), was administered to assess body
image dissatisfaction. It has nine male and nine female figures
ranging from very thin to obese categories. Each figure has an
alphabet written under it. The alphabets range from A to I,
where A denotes the figure that is very thin and I denotes
the obese figure. Individuals are asked some questionswhich figure looks most like their current figure, which one
looks like the ideal figure according to them, which figure
they expect to look like. The discrepancy between the alphabet denoting perceived current figure and the alphabet
denoting perceived ideal figure is considered as the measure
of body image dissatisfaction. The test-retest reliability was
found to be 0.90 for CBS (current body size) and 0.71 for IBS
(ideal body size) scores by Williamson et al. (1989). Such
figure rating scales make use of only pictorial items without
use of words or necessitating verbal responses and thus can be
considered as culture fair (Domino and Domino 2006). BIA
has been used in several studies in different cultures (Fingeret
et al. 2004; Talwar et al. 2012).
Data Analysis
From the responses of participants on the measure of body
image, dissatisfied and satisfied participants in each group
were determined. The median and quartile deviations were
obtained for the different components of physical self concept.
Biserial correlations were computed to determine the correlation between body image satisfaction and components of
physical self concept, for the four groups. U-test was done to
Results
Table 1 shows that majority (60 %) of the participants were
dissatisfied with their body image. This dissatisfaction was
seen to be most frequent in young adult males (83.33 %) and
least frequent in young adult females. Among the adolescent
participants, more boys (63.33 %) were found to be dissatisfied with their body image than girls (50 %).
Tables 2 shows that the participants dissatisfied with their
body image had different views about various aspects of
physical self concept than those who were satisfied with their
body, but this difference is significant in case of adolescent
individuals, unlike young adult participants.
Table 3 shows that sports competence and self-esteem
subscales of measure of physical self are found to be significantly negatively correlated with body image for adolescent
boys and young adult female groups of participants
respectively.
Discussion
The dilemma of body image begins with individuals own
perception of body: while a positive image may induce confidence and ease; a negative one puts a question mark on the
self-worth. Perhaps the widely reported association between
BMI and BID (Watkins et al. 2008) cannot be over generalized, in view of the fact that normal weight individuals are also
seen to have dissatisfaction with their body image (Dolan et al.
1987).
The present study shows that majority (60 %) of the participants, despite being in normal weight range, were dissatisfied with their body image. In spite of the anticipation that
in India the issue of body image concern is emerging only in
subtle tones (Chowdhury 2007), such findings have been
reported by earlier researches (Kayano et al. 2006), given
the growing consumer culture in India. In this era of globalization India is considered as a growing market and is in the
focus of the multinational corporations, consequently the
global culture is fast emerging. The overflow of commodities
coming from Western world necessitates a western translation
of the ideals of beauty and body. Though the traditional old
values and ethical styling are still in existence yet the young
India is now promptly acclimatizing to the global culture and
style. Researches has shown that dissatisfaction with ones
body image may stem from watching peers and media representations of fashion and beauty (Swami et al. 2010) and it
plausibly involves the concern about how one will be
Satisfied
Dissatisfied
Adolescent boys
11
36.67
19
63.33
Adolescent girls
Young adult men
Young adult women
Total
15
5
17
48
50.00
16.67
56.67
40.00
15
25
13
72
50.00
83.33
43.33
60.00
Table 2
Showing the median, quartile deviation and U values for the components of physical self concept among satisfied and dissatisfied adolescent participants
of both the genders
Subscales of PSDQ
Adolescent boys
Adolescent girls
Satisfied (n=11) Dissatisfied (n=19) U value
Satisfied (n=15) Dissatisfied (n=15) U value
Q
Mdn
Q
Mdn
0.040* Q
Mdn
Q
Mdn
0.050*
Health
2.00
34.00
2.50
30.00
5.00
32.00
5.50
31.00
Co-Ordination
Physical Activity
Body fat
Sports Competence
General Physical Self Concept
Appearance
Strength
Flexibility
Endurance
Self-Esteem
5.00
7.00
3.50
9.00
3.50
5.00
2.00
4.50
3.00
2.50
23.00
27.00
31.00
22.00
24.00
30.00
25.00
25.00
19.00
31.00
2.50
3.50
5.50
3.50
4.00
4.50
2.50
3.50
4.50
1.50
23.00
28.00
29.00
13.00
23.00
27.00
23.00
21.00
18.0
33.00
0.490
0.030*
0.250
0.250
0.000*
0.300
0.650
0.390
0.120
0.410
3.00
4.50
3.00
5.50
3.00
3.50
2.50
2.50
4.50
3.50
27.00
27.00
31.00
29.00
30.00
29.00
30.00
29.00
28.00
36.00
2.50
4.00
5.50
5.00
7.00
3.00
4.50
3.00
5.00
6.00
27.00
18.00
29.00
19.00
28.00
26.00
28.00
28.00
25.00
34.00
0.070
0.007*
0.267
0.890
0.000*
0.000*
0.000*
0.000*
0.004*
0.006*
Showing the median, quartile deviation and U values for the components of physical self concept among satisfied and dissatisfied young adult
participants of both the genders
Subscales of PSDQ
Young adult men
Young adult women
Satisfied (n=5)
Dissatisfied (n=25) U value
Satisfied (n=17) Dissatisfied (n=13) U value
Q
Mdn
Q
Mdn
0.075
Q
Mdn
Q
Mdn
0.603
Health
1.50
33.00
4.50
37.00
4.50
36.00
2.00
40.00
Co-ordination
2.50
24.00
2.50
26.00
0.101
3.50
25.00
3.00
27.00
0.950
Physical activity
Body fat
Sports competence
General physical self concept
Appearance
Strength
Flexibility
Endurance
Self-esteem
*P<0.05
**p<0.01
3.00
5.50
7.50
3.50
7.00
5.00
6.00
5.50
8.00
14.00
28.00
23.00
25.00
25.00
25.00
20.00
16.00
38.00
6.50
6.00
6.50
3.50
2.50
3.00
4.50
4.00
4.00
16.00
27.00
15.00
27.00
29.00
23.00
27.00
22.00
39.00
0.058
0.880
0.720
0.640
0.960
0.490
0.075
0.130
0.640
2.50
4.50
9.00
1.50
5.00
5.00
2.50
2.50
2.50
19.00
33.00
26.00
29.00
26.00
25.00
25.00
20.00
37.00
2.00
3.00
3.50
4.50
6.00
3.50
3.00
2.00
5.50
20.00
35.00
27.00
30.00
30.00
24.00
26.00
20.00
33.00
0.230
0.380
0.340
0.460
0.580
0.490
0.620
0.740
0.060
Adolescent girls
Health
Coordination
Physical activity
Body fat
0.147
-0.249
-0.327
-0.241
-0.056
-0.080
0.146
-0.226
0.218
0.312
0.234
-0.007
0.097
0.099
-0.112
0.101
Sports competence
General physical self concept
Appearance
Strength
Flexibility
Endurance
Self-esteem
-0.436*
-0.285
-0.121
-0.168
-0.185
-0.172
0.179
0.148
-0.347
-0.218
-0.331
-0.168
-0.050
-0.054
-0.234
0.105
0.160
0.077
0.357
0.264
0.097
0.164
-0.223
0.043
-0.073
0.019
-0.099
-0.414*
Subscales of PSDQ
*P<0.05
**p<0.01
advertisements of skin or hair beautification products, these products are labeled as skin care or hair care products, which include skin and hair in the purview of health.
This may well give birth to BID in an individual who does
not have that perfect skin or hair. These factors might
have operated to persuade the adolescents that their body,
which is short of ideal, is unhealthy. Similar relation
between the concept of healthy figure and body image
dissatisfaction were not found among young adult participants. It may be stated that though BID was found among
young adults, with growing maturity they have gained a
stable concept of health that remain separated from the
concept of beauty.
Contradiction exists regarding the relationship between
satisfaction or dissatisfaction with body image and physical
activity and sports competence. High levels of body satisfaction have been found to be associated with the perception of
oneself being physically active (Davis and Cowles 1991), but
this has been found to be mostly true for males rather than
females (Alipoor et al. 2009). Results of the present study
showed that adolescent girls, who were dissatisfied with body
image, reported themselves to be physically less active.
However, in case of adolescent boys despite their dissatisfaction with their body they considered themselves as physically
active, but less competent in sports. They also did not have
significant negative view about their strength and body flexibility. So it can be assumed that their schema of being
physically active is not constituted of sports competence only.
In India while boys are mostly inspired to participate in
outdoor games, girls are traditionally not encouraged to indulge in sports. They are expected to learn virtues of a good
homemaker since their childhood (Luthra 2009). But this
encouragement and peer and family pressure for males to be
fit to excel in sports is more common in adolescence than later
phases of life. Interestingly more than 60 % of adolescent boys
revealed that they play football, cricket or participate in some
other form of outdoor sport. This socialization process while
on the one hand might have propagated indifference about
sports in the adolescent girls and resultant lack of knowledge
about their abilities to participate and perform in sports; consequently they perceive themselves as incompetent in sports,
lacking physical strength, endurance and flexibility, on the
other it form an evaluation of adolescent boys, who are
dissatisfied with their body, as themselves being incompetent
in sports.
Body image satisfaction appeared to be related to selfesteem among female participants of both age groups.
Dissatisfaction with ones appearance and overall body image
has been found to be significantly related to low self-esteem in
young adult females (Lowery et al. 2005) and adolescent girls
(Seepersad 2012) by researchers. Self-esteem also has been
found to have an effect on how females view their bodies
compared to other female bodies (Jones and Buckingham
Conclusion
The findings of the present study revealed that for the majority
of the participants body image is a matter of dissatisfaction,
but it is more frequent among males than females. While most
participants wished to be thinner, few expected to be heavier
than their ideal figure. Though for most male participants
drive for muscularity seemed to cause expectations of a
heavier figure, few of them wished to have a smaller figure
than their current figure as well. It was also seen that individuals who were satisfied with their body image differed significantly from their counterparts, regarding their views about
some of the components of physical self concept. This study is
an attempt to explore whether dissatisfaction with ones body
image yield alteration in the concept of objective physical self.
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