Abstract
Background: Body image is one of the most important psychological factors that affects adolescents’ personality and behavior. Body image can be defined as the person’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about his or her body.
 Objectives: to identify the prevalence of body image concerns among secondary school students and its relation to different factors.
 Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in which 796 secondary school students participated and body shape concerns was investigated using the body shape questionnaire (BSQ-34).
 Results: The prevalence of moderate/marked concern was (21.6%). Moderate/ marked body shape concern was significantly associated with unemployed fathers and mothers, low level of maternal education, lower socioeconomic status, concern with body weight or problematic eating, increased BMI, increased anxiety and depression.
 Conclusions: The high prevalence of moderate/marked dissatisfaction with body shape and its possible relation to subsequent hazards such as eating disorders, depression, and anxiety should be of concern.
Highlights
Body image is one of the most important psychological factors that affects adolescents’ personality and behavior
Moderate/ marked body shape concern was significantly associated with non-working fathers and mothers, lower level of maternal education, and lower socioeconomic status
It was significantly associated with concern with body weight or problematic eating, increased body mass index (BMI), and increased risk for anxiety and depression
Summary
Body image is one of the most important psychological factors that affects adolescents’ personality and behavior. Objectives: to identify the prevalence of body image concerns among secondary school students and its relation to different factors. Results: The prevalence of moderate/marked concern was (21.6%). Moderate/ marked body shape concern was significantly associated with unemployed fathers and mothers, low level of maternal education, lower socioeconomic status, concern with body weight or problematic eating, increased BMI, increased anxiety and depression. Conclusions: The high prevalence of moderate/marked dissatisfaction with body shape and its possible relation to subsequent hazards such as eating disorders, depression, and anxiety should be of concern. Body image is one of the most important psychological factors that affects adolescents’ personality and behavior [2]. Dissatisfaction with physical appearance and body image seems to be more the rule than the exception. Media has had a negative impact on adolescent body image as it influences adolescents' perspectives on their own bodies and pressures them to conform to the Western views of physical appearance increasing the risk of body image concerns and Eating Disorders (ED) among young people [6]
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