Prevalência de insatisfação corporal em escolares de Juiz de Fora – MG

Abstract

This epidemiological study was carried out with the objective of identifying the prevalence of body dissatisfaction among high school students in the city of Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil. A sample of 378 students of both sexes aged 15-18 who attended public and private schools in the city in the year of 2008. The sample stratification was performed according to the characteristics of the absolute population. As for the type of school, 246 students attended public schools while 132 attended private ones (65% and 35% of the total sample, respectively). Regarding the sex of the participants, 203 were girls and 175 were boys. In order to measure the dissatisfaction with body image, the teenagers were submitted to a self-administered questionnaire called Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ). The evaluation tool, validated for Brazil by Di Pietro (2002), is composed of 34 questions referring to the feelings and attitudes of these teenagers regarding their bodies in the last four weeks. The results were added to a database and a software was used to the statistical calculations (SPSS v.16.0 for Windows). The T Test, with a significance level of 95% (p<0.05), was used to verify the existence of statistically significant differences. Data were interpreted both statistically and descriptively. The results show there is higher dissatisfaction with their bodies among the girls, specially those from private schools (25.4%) when compared to the girls attending public school (13%), and to the boys from private schools (6.2%) and the boys from public ones (1.8%). Body dissatisfaction was shown to be related to the practice of physical activities. Sedentary teenagers were more dissatisfied with their bodies (12.8%) than those who practice physical activities (9.3%). However, when analyzing the sex variable, it was found that among the girls the practice of physical activities is a reason for the increase of preoccupation with body image (21% of those who practice physical activities and 15.7% of those who do not are dissatisfied with their bodies). The very high levels of body image dissatisfaction among sedentary students from private school are worrying (10% of the severely dissatisfied with their bodies) since this level is commonly observed in people with eating disorders.