[Body image satisfaction in Mexican adolescents and adults and its relation with body selfperception and real body mass index]

Abstract

Introduction: Body Image (BI) perception could determine the nutritional care search, even though there is not always concordance between the real BMI and the self-perceived one.

Objetive: To determine the correlation between self-perceived and real BMI, and their relation with body image (BI) satisfaction in a sample of Mexican adolescents and adults.

Subjects and methods: An cross-sectional and analytical study, conformed by 556 participants; of which 330 were adolescents and 217 were adults with anthropometric, self-perception and BI satisfaction assessment.

Results: The BMI was higher 23±6 vs 29.3±5 p<0.001 in adults, which doubled the level of overweight and obesity present in the adolescents 79% vs 43%. About 50% of participants had concordance between their real BMI and their perceived one (p<0.001). Of all adults with overweight and obesity 68% had satisfaction with their BI, whereas the prevalence of satisfaction with the BI in adolescents was 80%. The predictive variables of BI insatisfaction were being an adult, being a woman and having overweight/obesity (p=0.013). Those ones who referred a positive judgment about their BI, they also reported being satisfied with their BI and presented a real normal or overweight BMI.

Conclusions: Half of the participants had concordance of their perceived BI with their real BMI. The satisfaction with BI was more frequent between the lower real and perceived BMI, but subjects with overweight and obesity also reported satisfaction with their BI even though it is considered a risk condition.