Body Structure and Physical Self-Concept in Early Adolescence

Abstract

In adolescence, the complexity of human ontogenesis embraces biological growth and maturation as well as mental, affective, and cognitive progress, and adaptation to the requirements of society. To accept our morphological constellation as part of our gender may prove a problem even to a child of average rate of maturation. The main purposes of the present study were to compare selected body shape factors of early adolescents belonging to different physical self-concept subgroups, and to identify those somatic factors that have the strongest influence on the physical self-concept. A randomly selected subsample of the 2nd Hungarian National Growth Study formed the sample of the analysis. Besides the anthropometric investigations, the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale was administered to altogether 2,140 adolescents (aged 11-14). The multinominal logistic regression was used to reveal the relationship between absolute body dimensions, relative body dimensions, nutritional status, body mass components, body shape, and physical self-concept. The better the physical self-concept, the less the fatness was found in both sexes. In early adolescents, having negative physical self-concept endomorphy was significantly larger than in their agepeers with good self-concept. The presumed fact that obesity is not popular in adolescence has been confirmed by this study. However, the underweight nutritional status was attractive in the girls. These results informed us about

Body Esteem among Korean Adolescent Boys and Girls

“…Adolescents lack a firm identity, go through frequent changes, experience confusion, and display comparative behaviors [61,62]. It is therefore crucial for them to establish a consistent and clear self-concept that is not based upon their appearance or body image.…”

Children's Physical Self-Concept, Motivation, and Physical Performance: Does Physical Self-Concept or Motivation Play a Mediating Role?

“…Although gender differences may be less prevalent in younger children before adolescence, boys usually show a more positive physical self-concept and higher motivation as well as better physical performance than girls (e.g., Eccles and Harold, 1991;Jacobs et al, 2002;Morano et al, 2011). In addition, several studies have revealed that children's body mass index (BMI), calculated as weight (kg) divided by height (m) squared, was closely intertwined with differences in physical self-concept (Paeratakul et al, 2002;Marsh et al, 2007b;Morano et al, 2011), motivation, and physical achievement (Trost et al, 2001;Morano et al, 2011;Zsakai et al, 2017): overweight or obese children typically demonstrate a lower physical self-concept, lower motivation, and poorer performance in physical activities than their normal-weight peers. However, it is still unclear in the literature whether children's BMI also changes the relations between physical self-concept, motivation, and physical performance (i.e., does being obese reinforce or decrease the relations?).…”

Motivational Climate towards the Practice of Physical Activity, Self-Concept, and Healthy Factors in the School Environment

“…Finally, when the relationship between body mass index and self-concept is considered, a negative and indirect relationship is seen, with a slightly stronger relation amongst girls. The association between body mass index and self-concept can be largely explained by the strong impact of body image on the physical dimension of self-concept, which, in turn, has a strong impact on the social dimension of self-concept [59,60]. The differences presented between sexes, in which males showed a stronger relation, can be explained by the fact that boys of the age examined in the present study tend to engage in physical activity competitively against their peers.…”