2007 Volume 3 Pages 30-38
The aim of this study was to determine whether the desire for slenderness in young men was associated with perceptions and misconceptions of the self-evaluated physique, criteria for the ideal physique or interest in shape and weight control/loss behaviors (SWCBs). The study subjects were 599 male students of a vocational school (18-23y old), who were targeted in a self-administered questionnaire survey. They were divided into two groups, those desiring weight loss (group A) and those not (group B). The results obtained for those desiring weight loss revealed that 45.9% of the students desired weight loss, although 73.8% of students in group A had BMI 18.5 to 24.9, i.e. were in the normal weight range. In group A, 29.5% of students, and in group B, 25.9% of students had misconceptions about their proper body weight. In both groups A and B, 34~49% of subjects chose "weight" and "height" as criteria for their ideal physiques. Subjects were commonly interested in "endurance exercise", "muscle exercise", "how to eat" and "calories" as SWCBs and the rate of subjects who were interested in these items in group A was higher than in group B. The number of students who were interested in unhealthy and/or risky SWCBs and who had dieted 2 times or more were higher in group A than in group B. The rate of subjects who tried unhealthy and/or risky SWCBs among the subjects who had dieted 2 times or more was higher than that among the subjects who had dieted once. These results suggest that repeated dieting causes unhealthy and/or risky SWCBs. These results demonstrate that in male students, misconceptions about physique are associated with unnecessary weight loss and interest in unhealthy and/or risky SWCBs. Thus, it is important to provide adolescents with health education emphasizing appropriate recognition of the physique.
