Body dissatisfaction in youth of a high school school in Porto Alegre

The objective of this study was to analyze body image perceptions of 133 students of both sexes, aged 15 to 19 of a public high school in Porto Alegre-RS. Each participant indicated the silhouette most similar to his\her body and the most desired one on a Scale of Silhouettes (Kakeshita, 2008). The Body Mass Index was calculated for each individual. Body dissatisfaction was identified from the difference between the scores of the self-perceived silhouettes and the appearance compared to the actual silhouette. The majority of the participants presented normal nutritional status, 74.4%, where 21.1% of them were overweight and only 4.5% presented low weight for age. The findings showed that there is body dissatisfaction among the children of this school and that there is a difference between male and female dissatisfaction, especially regarding the choice of the silhouettes. Students of both sexes perceived their lower body image than it really is. However, female students still wanted a smaller silhouette, as they perceived their body sizes significantly larger than desired sizes, unlike male students, who did not demonstrate this significant difference between perceived and desired silhouette. The results of this research are compatible with other studies in the literature.