Abstract
Simple but basic body concepts of height and weight of youths in five countries (America, England, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) were surveyed utilizing a questionnaire method consisted of three questions on the present, individual ideal, and the national ideal average body-build and the results were compared. Both boys and girls in America and England were taller and heavier than their Asian counterparts in all three categories. Generally speaking, boys in all countries wanted to be individually larger than their national averages but girls wanted to be rather slimmer. Sex differences in the height of individual ideals was 15 cms. and about 12 cms. for the national ideal averages. There were no general tendencies in the category of the national ideal average imagined by the opposite sex. The validity of this method and its results were proved by three points in the process of data analysis.
