The body image of Taiwanese adolescent girls (Abstract)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influencing factors of female adolescent's body image. One thousand nine hundred and three (n = 1903) female adolescents, age 12-18, from 12 middle schools and 12 high schools completed the questionnaire delivered by teachers in the classroom. The body image was measured with Body-Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults (BEASS) and the Body-Areas Satisfaction subscale of The Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ). The relationships between adolescent's body image and individual physical and psychological variables (school level, actual body shape, expected body shape, self-esteem, teasing experience due to body shape, career planning related to appearance), family variables (family socioeconomic status, family concern, parents' monitoring, family communication), significant others variables (adoration of model's figure, body shape viewed by significant others, encouragement of weight loss by significant others) were studied with stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results show that: (1) 50.3% of the variance of body-esteem can be predicted (P < .05) by self-esteem, actual body shape, teasing experience, expected body shape, family communication, and body shape viewed by significant others, (2) 42.3% of the variance of body-area satisfaction can be predicted (P < .05) by self-esteem, actual body shape, family concern, school level, teasing experience, expected body shape, family socioeconomic status, and body shape viewed by significant others.