Interests in the appearance in the modern society were limited to women in the past, but now more adolescents pursue to be beautiful so that they create new consumption culture. Therefore, through BMI index reflecting their actual body types and somat...
Interests in the appearance in the modern society were limited to women in the past, but now more adolescents pursue to be beautiful so that they create new consumption culture. Therefore, through BMI index reflecting their actual body types and somatotype drawing that is their subjective understanding of the somatotypes, this study finds the awareness of young students and analyzes sociocultural factors, appearance satisfaction, contentment of their faces, self esteem and concerns for the beauty to figure out factors that change the adolescents’ consciousness about the body. Also, this research suggests fundamental data that helps the activation of beauty market targeting the teenagers as well as the materials for education programs and the development of beauty programs.
The results are listed below.
First of all, most teenagers consider that their shapes are normal but prefer to be underweight in relation to the BMI index. Thus, it is revealed that their preferred somatotypes are thin.
Next, the difference in the BMI index and somatotype drawings is little between normal, overweight and obese students. On the other hand, the students whose weight is lower than normal significantly regard that their body types are in regular. With regard to the BMI index, male and high school students weigh more than female and middle school students, respectively. Unlike that, the results are quite alike in the somatotype drawings. As a result, we could see the results from the anthropometric measurement and the difference according to the personal perception.
Thirdly, the highest sociocultural factor is the beauty conscious- ness. It means that the adolescents utilize and accept the relevant information. In addition, the BMI index is high in normal weight group and the underweight students have high somatotype drawings, so it is found out that the objective as well as subjective body consciousness is different in terms of the sociocultural factors.
Moreover, the majority of teenagers are not satisfied with their appearance. The lower their weight is, the higher their satisfaction levels are regarding the analyses of the BMI index and somatotype drawings, which shows the strong desires of young students who want to be thinner.
Fifth, the teenagers whose somatotype drawings as well as the BMI index are below the standard have higher level of satisfaction about their faces. However, in case of the BMI index, However, considering the BMI index, the facial satisfaction is highest in the underweight group, and obese, normal and overweight groups follow next in order. It shows that obese adolescents are gratified with their faces more than the teenagers whose weight is normal. It illustrates that the beauty awareness that the teenagers have is not similar with that in reality so they may feel unstable. Consequently, we can say that follow-up researches on the factors that influence on their beauty awareness are necessary.
Also, it is clearly seen that the self-esteem is more influenced by external factors than the internal ones, and the fact whether the adolescents are acknowledged by their peer groups or society affect the formation of their self-esteem as well. Additionally, this variable hits the higher marks in the underweight group.
Lastly, the students who have normal weight are more interested in the beauty than any other groups. In detail, they highly care their skin, figures and makeup in comparison with general factors, hairstyles and nail cares. This result describes that they put their importance on actual appearance like body shapes and skin in that they have to study as well.