Body Image in Men: «To Lose or to Gain?»
Luca Oppo, Alessia Offredi
At present, the literature comprehends only limited research about body image, and related satisfaction and dissatisfaction experiences, specifically referred to men. In the last few decades, international research has developed towards a greater inclusion of men. The aim of the present study was to investigate body satisfaction in a non-clinical male sample, and to explore association with specific symptoms and psychological constructs, like anxiety, depression, self-esteem, worry, unhealthy eating behaviours and class of weight. 174 subjects were enrolled, aged from 18 to 81 years, who were asked to complete several self-report questionnaires which assessed the aforementioned variables. The emerging results revealed the presence of body dissatisfaction in our sample; furthermore, as the correlations highlighted, the more this body dissatisfaction increased, the higher the increase in anxiety and depression, worry, general discomfort, and unhealthy eating behaviours, and the higher the decrease in self-esteem. Lastly, worry and low self-esteem emerged as predictors of body dissatisfaction in our sample. This suggests the necessity to investigate among these constructs the presence of any causal relationships, in order to identify nuclear therapeutic targets for the treatment of body dissatisfaction in men.
Keywords
Male body image, Worry, Body dissatisfaction, Men, Self-esteem.
