Gender, and satisfaction of body image in high school students of Yucatan, Mexico

Abstract

Adolescence constitutes a stage of changes and strong social pressures among peers, to adjust to a standard of beauty in which the perception of body image is of great relevance in comprehensive health behaviors as well as a risk factor for eating disorders. Regarding problem that is our interest to know (Body Image), we use a gender focuses, as the transversal analytical axis of the study, as well as the study of a region with a strong presence of Maya-speakers.

Methodology: This is a quantitative, cross-sectional study conducted on 1432 high school students in the eastern part of the state of Yucatan, using a self-administered questionnaire (BSQ and SFS scales), with the prior informed consent of parents and participants.

Results: It was obtained that 66.5% of the students are satisfied with their body image, and 32.7% are dissatisfied. It was obtained by means of the Kappa index that the perceptions of the body image of the studied students vs the desired body image have a moderate concordance. Significant differences on mean on dissatisfaction with their image were found between men and women p ≤ 0.001.

Conclusions: In the area studied it is shown that gender constitutes a risk factor in which the condition of being the social pressure to adjust to beauty models, impacts regardless of the rural, urban or local culture, in this case of the Mayan zone.