Supattra Mungkalachaiya. Body image and weight control behavior : a study of high school female students. Master's Degree(Medical and Health Social Sciences ). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2006.
Body image and weight control behavior : a study of high school female students
Abstract:
This investigation was to study the meaning of knowledge, belief and
experience related to the self body image linked to weight control behavior among
female high school students. Qualitative research was employed among 12 sixteenseventeen-
year old female students studying in senior high school.
Findings were that they defined their self-body images in 3 dimensions.
First, they saw their bodies as parts and sized them in parts such as arms, legs,
breasts, waists, hips, and abdomens. Second, they defined their self-body images as
pair of opposites, which was that the shape that appealed to them was contradictory
to what they had at the moment. For example, those who thought they were short
wished to be taller or those who thought they were fat wished to be thinner. Third,
they defined their self-body images by viewing them in comparison to others. They
compared their existing bodies with the past ones. They compare their bodies with
others either their friends, family members and even those they admired or those
they met or in the media. Female adolescents negatively defined fatness rather than
positively. It negatively affected them. It was compared to a spinster, idleness, and a
buffoon. It was problematic and it was an enemy. However, on the contras they also
positively defined fatness, as lovely and warm. In addition, they related it to health;
i.e. it was a health risk. Related to slimness, they defined it positively than
negatively. It was modern, feminine, active and created confidence. Though they
desired to be thin, they negatively defined it. Slimness was disheartening, and
pitiful. Related to beauty, they defined it as proportion and balance. There should be
both external beauty so that other people would like to get to know them and also
internal beauty, which was the mind, which could create lasting friendship. Beauty
linked the body and femininity. In relation to weight control behavior, it was found
that the female adolescent used techniques of dieting with exercise most followed by
either only dieting or exercising. Finally, using the laxative for reducing ones
weight.
Friends, parents and media influenced them in selecting the techniques. It
was found that weight control behavior was selected, they had no discipline to
continue with it. Such behavior happened only for the purpose of reducing their
weight and their shape. If it worked, they would stop or otherwise return to do it
again.