Body image perception and mental health of in-school adolescents in Benin City, Nigeria.

Abstract

Perception of one's physical appearance is important in the development of the concept of body image. Desire to achieve the unrealistic image of 'physical perfection' often make adolescents feel discontented; thus leading to mental health problems. To assess body image perception (BIP) and its relationship with mental health of secondary school adolescents in Benin City, Nigeria. The study was cross-sectional and descriptive, conducted in senior secondary schools in Benin City. Six hundred randomly selected subjects completed the 28-item General Health Questionnaire, the appearance evaluation (AE) and body areas satisfaction (BAS) subscales of the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ), and a sociodemographic data collection sheet. Cross tabulation of categorical variables and correlation analysis was performed by means of SPSS version 19.0, with level of significance set atP= 0.05. Two hundred and twenty three (36.7%) and 46.2% of the respondents were dissatisfied with their appearance and discrete aspects of their bodies, respectively. The prevalence of probable psychiatric morbidity was 35.4%. AE and BAS subscales of the MBSRQ had significant but weak negative correlation with psychiatric morbidity (r = -0.195,P= 0.000; r = -0.097,P= 0.018, respectively). BIP was significantly associated with psychiatric morbidity. Subjects who were less satisfied with their general appearance and discrete aspects of their body screened positive for general psychiatric morbidity.