Does body weight affect body self-image perception among tribal adolescent girls and boys?

Objective: Present study delineates to explore the relation of actual body weight and body self-image perception among tribal adolescent girls and boys. Materials and methods: This cross sectional study is conducted at Purulia district of West Bengal. A total number of 395 Santal adolescent (Girls: 181; Boys: 214); aged 1418 years are recruited for the current study. Structured questionnaire is used to access data on body image and body weight perception. Height and weight are taken for estimation of Body Mass Index. Results: More overweight female participants regarded themselves as normal. Considerable section of overweight male participants perceived their own body weight as both overweight and normal. Overall Appearance Evaluation (OAE) score is significantly more in male overweight. Overweight female and male participants scored highest for Fatness Evaluation (FE) Scale. Height Dissatisfaction (HD) Score is significantly greater among male overweight participants. Drive for Thinness (DT) and Body Dissatisfaction (BD) score both are significantly more among male underweight participants. Multivariate Analyses of variance (MANOVA) find BMI of female and male participants have statistical significant effect on various body self-image perception scores. Conclusion: Barring overweight participants faulty body weight perception is absent in present study participants. Weight management behaviours are not prevalent among them. They belong from lower socio-economic background and have less media exposure. All these might be the reason of their nonspecific dietary intake and practices.