Autopercepción de la imagen corporal en mujeres adolescentes de una Unidad Educativa de Cuenca

Abstract

Body image is a recent topic of great interest in our context and the image is explained positively and negatively with others. The aim of the present study was to describe the self-perception of body image in teenager women aged between 12 to 17 years old studying at Cuenca´s highschool. The research had a quantitative approach, non-experimental cross-sectional type with a descriptive scope; in which 279 teenager women participated, of whom 85 were between 12 to 13, 133 between 14 to 16 and 61 teenagers of 17 years old; the average age was 14.70. A questionnaire was used in order to obtain sociodemographic information such as the age and grade of the participants, together with the Gardner´s Scale for the Assessment of Body Image adapted to the Spanish population of Rodríguez, Beato, Rodríguez & Martínez-Sánchez (2003). Data processing was performed through the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS V20) and the Stata program (14v9); for the analysis of information, descriptive statistics techniques were used and the results were presented through figures and tables. The results found indicate that the adolescents presented an inadequate perception of their body image, that is, they want to gain or lose weight. Regarding to the real body image related to the Body Mass Index (BMI), teenager women, despite being within the normal range, perceive their bodies in an inadequate way. Likewise, when comparing the perceived and desired image by age groups, similar results were found concerning to the desired image, since the participants yearn thinner figures than those perceived. In conclusion, teenager women aged between 12 to 17 years old showed an alteration regarding to the perceptual component when creating their body image.