Percepção da imagem corporal e representações sociais do corpo

Abstract

The increasement of people with body image disorders highlighted the issue both in science and in the media. This study's goal was to search the relation between social representations and body image among female university students from different courses. The participants were 278 students from the Psychology, Physical Education and Fashion courses. The applied questionnaire intended to investigate body's satisfaction and also social representations. The results suggest a general student's dissatisfaction with their body image, even though they perceive their body as normal. The representations of the body presented three contexts: (1) the importance of the body's look and expression in interpersonal relations; (2) beauty and health related to thinness and physical activity; (3) appearance indicating potentialities in both personal and professional fields. It was concluded that the students' social representations of the body seem to be incompatible with their body image.