EC Paediatrics

Negative body image is a prevalent problem for many people and can also figure in many serious disorders. The following personal perspective challenges the current body cult’s supervision, characterized by dramatization and unproportional perception and response from the environment to adolescents’ body dissatisfaction.

Storm and disharmony characterize adolescence, even in normal situations. Thus, body dissatisfaction may be viewed as part of a normal developmental phase during adolescence, given the time needed to adjust to physical changes and its role as transformational object, a non-common perspective. Thus, any unproportional attention given may contribute to it becoming a health problem. Negative body image may be the result of poor emotion regulation, impaired coping skills, and developmental delays, which can be addressed through adequate prevention and treatment programs, such as considering early maladaptive schemas, compassion, and addressing the disparity between physical and emotional development. Environmental efforts to minimize negative body image may encourage self-talk about the normality of body dissatisfaction to a certain extent, as well as efforts to moderate imperfections. By avoiding excessive environmental preoccupation with body dissatisfaction, and expression of panic or other unregulated response, such phenomena may stay just a transitional developmental phase.

Keywords: Body Cult; Body Dissatisfaction; Adolescence; Transformational Object; Prevention

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