James Woolyhand
Psyx 345 review paper
April 9, 2010
Problem Statement:
This article examines the prevalence and consequences of body dissatisfaction among adolescent boys and girls and discusses the role of body dissatisfaction in psychological disorders, including depression and eating disorders. Additionally, it explores predictors of the development of body dissatisfaction, including individual, familial, peer, and socio-cultural influences, as well as factors that may serve a protective function. An understanding of the factors that increase the risk for body dissatisfaction can help guide prevention efforts. Given the complexity of the development of body image concerns, interventions aimed at reducing body dissatisfaction will likely need to target multiple factors. According to the article, recent studies show that approximately 60% of girls and 30% of boys desire to change the shape and appearance of their body (Presnel et al 389).
Body dissatisfaction in adolescents has proven to be associated with high levels of subjective stress, unhealthy weight control behaviors, and extreme methods of altering appearance, such as cosmetic surgery and steroid use. The goal of this study is to investigate the risk factors for body dissatisfaction in a sample of adolescent boys and girls. Researchers hypothesize that socio-cultural pressure endorses an ultra-thin figure for women and a lean, muscular one for men. As these ideals become increasingly difficult to attain, a sense of dissatisfaction develops. In addition to socio-cultural pressures, other risk factors include biological factors, as well as individual risk factors such as dieting and negative mood.
The Essay on The Role of Cultural Intelligence in Effective Leadership
Over the years, business companies and society in general have increasingly housed different people from all over the world, each bringing to the table his or her own culture. As a consequence, the need for effective social skills and cultural sensitivity has been highlighted, especially for managers as part of the complete leadership package. What is Cultural Intelligence? Traditionally, ...
Methods:
The methodology that the authors used to test their hypotheses was a study sample comprised of 531 adults (238 boys and 293 girls) ranging in ages from 16-19. The sample was composed of 4% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 3% African Americans, 79% Caucasians, 10% Hispanics, 1% Native Americans, and 3% of mixed racial heritage. The questionnaire focused on six areas that could be identified as possible risk factors for adolescent body dissatisfaction. These categories were identified as the following: perceived pressures to be thin, thin-ideal internalization, adiposity, social support, negative affectivity, and body dissatisfaction (Presnel et al. 392-93).
Perceived pressure to be thin assessed the amount of pressure to be thin that participants perceived from family, friends, dating partners, and the media. The thin-ideal internalization scale asks participants to indicate their level of agreement with ten statements concerning what attractive women look like. Adiposity has to do with body mass index, based on self report data. Social support assessed companionship, guidance, intimacy, affection, admiration and reliable alliance from parents using a five point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Negative Affectivity is a scale used to measure one’s permeability to negative emotional experiences, including anxiety, anger, irritation, and stress. The Body Dissatisfaction Scale was used to identify 21 body parts that asked participants to rate their level of satisfaction with each part on a five point scale (e.g., waist, thighs, muscle tone) (Presnel et al. 393).
The purpose of these particular methods is to identify risk factors in different categories that are directly related to body dissatisfaction among adolescents.
The Essay on Body Weight Person Factors Behavior
Social and biological factors have an impact on body weight, perception, alcoholism, extroversion, and schizophrenia in the individual. Many social characteristics of individuals are associated with body weight in societies of today. Factors, such as gender, age, ethnicity, the occupation, household size, income, education received, and marriage can have an impact on body weight. Females tend to ...
Results:
For body dissatisfaction, scores for girls indicated that they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Boys scored moderately satisfied. This scale showed that the rates of body dissatisfaction among girls actually decreased. According to researchers, this maybe due to chance fluctuations, selective attrition, or a measurement artifact reflecting pretest sensitization. As hypothesized, initial elevations in body mass, negative
affect, and perceived pressure to be thin from peers predicted increases
in body dissatisfaction over the 9-month study period. However, parental social support,
thin-ideal internalization, and perceived pressure to be thin from family, dating partners,
and media did not show significant prospective relations. With regard to negative mood, this experimental study may not represent the types of mood disturbances experienced outside of this study. An interesting piece of data in the results showed that girls that reported being moderately or extremely dissatisfied were well within the normal weight range, whereas dissatisfied boys were actually considered overweight (Presnel et al 396-97).
Critique:
The topic of this study is extremely important because body dissatisfaction has been identified as one of the most potent and consistent risk factors for eating disorders, and contributes significantly to poor self-esteem and depression among adolescents. An understanding of the factors that increase the risk for body dissatisfaction can help guide prevention efforts for these outcomes. It is also important to consider additional research to determine how best to foster greater body satisfaction among adolescents. In addition, further research could generate better understanding of adolescent cognitive perceptions about self-image and self-esteem. An interesting follow-up to this research would be an experiment that explored possible interventions aimed at reducing body dissatisfaction. Such an experiment would have to address multiple factors including individual, familial, and socio-cultural factors. More research should be conducted to come up with protective factors that may aid adolescents in developing a positive body image.
The Essay on Adolescent Girls Dietary Restraint
... study examined the perceived role of three types of sociocultural agents (peers, parents, and media) in influencing body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint in adolescent girls. ... behaviors are of concern since longitudinal studies suggest that dieting in adolescence is a risk factor for the development of eating disorder ...
Works Cited
Bearman, Sara Kate,. Presnel, Katherine,. and Stice Eric. Risk Factors for Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescent Boys and Girls: A Prospective Study.
University of Texas, Austin. November 2003.
