This dissertation examines body image ideology within the larger context of adolescent social networks and the physical environment of a high school, specifically focusing on factors that may be contributing to the current overweight/obesity epidemic among youth. I explore the ways in which adolescents construct gendered identities through talk about body image as well as adolescent practices and discourses regarding exercise and food consumption, including how their perceptions of what it means to be athletic and healthy intersect with their perceptions about body image ideals and norms. I further discuss ways in which adolescents construct moral identities through 'othering' discourses about overweight and obese people, including teasing practices. A primary goal of this ethnographic research project is to integrate the study of body image, food consumption, exercise, and teasing practices among youth in order to contribute a contextualized understanding of how youth perceive and enact these behaviors in their daily lives.

Traditional retouching, where you make the body of a female model in a magazine thinner, has been common for a long time and is well known. Several studies indicates that showing ultra-thin images of female bodies in media can lower the body satisfaction of “ordinary” women which in some cases can lead to dangerous eating disorders. But in 2010 Swedish female magazine VeckoRevyn introduced a new type of retouching: Making some catwalk models bodies bigger instead, which we decided to call opposite retouching. This kind of retouching is aiming to widen the ideal picture that is sent out of how the female body should look like, and therefore having the readers reach a higher body satisfaction and becoming more at peace with the own body. This according to the magazine’s editor in chief, Linda Öhrn Lernstrom. In this attitude study we are looking to widen the knowledge about opposite retouching as a phenomenon by doing qualitative interviews with a number of young women in age 15 – 25 about their outlook on this new retouching. We later present as extensively as we can all these different outlooks, as well as by using Festinger’s social comparison theory, the social responsibility theory presented by Peterson and finally Hall’s representation theory, analyse these outlooks at a deeper level. Opposite retouching showed to be a controversial phenomenon among our respondents: Some of the women meant that the magazine takes their social responsibility and that this initiative is admirable, while some thought that it just makes some women’s body dissatisfaction even worse since even the thin catwalk models bodies weren’t “good enough”. The women in this study belong to the same age group and live in the same culture, which accordning to Hall is crucial for how one perceives media content, and had still such great differences of opinion when it came to the subject of opposite retouching. This indicates that this new retouching needs further investigation, and this attitude study strives to be a contribution to the research field.

This thesis examines the pervasive presence of the vulnerability of the human body in Charles Dickens’s writing. It demonstrates, through a collection and discussion of bodily references drawn from the range of Dickens’s novels, that the the body’s vulnerability is, in conjunction with the use of humour and the literalizing of metaphorical references to the body, a crucial and fundamental element of both Dickens’s distinctive style and of his enduring literary popularity. Chapter one provides evidence for the contention that a sense of physical vulnerability was particularly intense in the Victorian era and that Dickens shared this awareness as his social and humanitarian interests and activities illustrate. The following chapter focuses on Dickens’s more private concerns with the body, particularly upon his personal physical fears and experiences, the public attention given to his body as a result of fame, his continual denial of his own physical frailties, and the interplay between his body and his writing all of which provided impetus to his literature. Chapters three, four, and five examine consecutively the ways in which physical vulnerability—to damage, disease, and death, but most importantly to dismemberment— function in the novels. They do so on three broad levels: Character, Conversation, and Expression which depict in ascending order increasing bodily insecurity in Dickens’s texts. The Character level concerns the bodily forms and fates of Dickens’s characters. We see here that the more a player’s body is described the more vulnerable it will become, thus good-hearted heroes are virtually “bodiless” and suffer little physical pain while evil characters are described in great anatomical detail and come to bodily harm. Dickens metes out “bodily justice” on this level in that he ensures that characters who have transgressed the rules of good conduct in his fictional world are physically punished for their misdeeds and that bodily punishment is in direct proportion to the “crime” committed. On the Conversational level Dickens depicts extreme physical horrors by expressing these things humorously, by putting descriptions of them in mouths variously and interestingly accented, and, most significantly, by playing on the dual literal and metaphorical meanings of bodily references. Most of this anatomical dialogue is anecdotal and therefore unverifiable, hypothetical and therefore unlikely to happen, or professional, i.e., spoken by “bodily experts” such as doctors or undertakers, and therefore irrefutable. Here exaggeration and extremes attract readers who are simultaneously fascinated and repelled by what characters say of the body. Dickens’s methods of Expression reflect physical reality—all bodies are vulnerable to sudden damage just as Dickens can dismember a body suddenly either with the stroke of a pen or by delaying its complete description. We see that on this level the body is at it most vulnerable and is damaged by methods of expression rather than by narrative. Dickens here plays most intensively with the literalization of metaphor, linguistically insisting that if a head appears around a doorway we can no longer assume that a body will follow. The novels are filled with dictionally decapitated heads and severed limbs, but through the use of humour and by reanimating these members Dickens ensures that his style elicits not simply a reaction of horror in his readers but elicits a response to the grotesque—a strong instinctual attraction to his work which is rooted in the body, not in the intellect. This dissertation concludes that the body’s vulnerability is not only a continual presence in Dickens’s novels but is an under-examined yet fundamental element in what makes his writing style distinctive and what makes his work continually popular.

This quantitative study examined body image and disordered eating in older males. Using a series of questionnaires and demographic questions, two research questions were explored: a) What are the characteristics of older males in terms of eating and body image? and b) Are disordered eating behaviors among older males related to dissatisfaction with body image, specifically physical appearance or physical functioning? Paired samples t-tests revealed that older males rated their ideal body figure as significantly smaller than their current figure, t(35) = -5.53, p < .01, which indicates the presence of body dissatisfaction. Twenty percent of participants were found to be at risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, a correlation was found between disordered eating attitudes and body dissatisfaction particularly as it relates to physical appearance, (r(33) = -.486, p < .01).

Context: Little is known about body image and its relationship with physical activity (PA) among people living with heart disease. Purpose: To determine the prevalence and stability of body image issues over time in heart patients, and to determine the bi-directional relationship between body image and PA over time. Method: Participants who completed cardiac rehabilitation (CR; n = 31), and who declined CR (n = 28) were recruited. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing body image and PA at two time intervals, three months apart. Results: Up to 9.7% of participants in CR and 10.7% of those not in CR reported high body image concerns. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed body image changed over time in people not in CR (body surveillance, Wilk’s ? = .768, F = 8.15, p = .008; control beliefs, Wilk’s ? = .837, F = 5.28, p = .030). Linear regressions showed that minutes of moderate PA predicted body image (body shame, ? = -.372, t = -.2.12, p = .043) in people in CR, and that body image (control beliefs) predicted minutes of moderate PA (? = .384, t =2.12, p = .044) in people not in CR. Conclusion/Implications: This research has the potential to lead to the development of more effective PA interventions, thus improving the longevity and quality of life of heart patients.

This thesis presents results from a qualitative study of how young women make sense of their fitness practices. Fitness practices related to diet and exercise are culturally linked to both appearance and health and tend to focus more on changing or maintaining the outside of body (appearance) rather than the inside (health) (Carlisle Duncan, 1994; Dworkin & Wachs, 2009; Smith Maguire, 2008).Young Canadian women are inundated with messages from both the public and private sectors about the imperative to be healthy. Many of these messages suggest that getting healthy will change our lives for the better. Four university-educated, middle class, white women; the demographic which is most marketed to by the fitness industry (Rhode, 2010; Smith Maguire, 2008) were recruited to take part in a study about how they understand their fitness practices. My research involved a focus group and individual follow-up interviews with each of the four participants. Discussion topics included participants’ perceptions of the ideal body that applies to them and what participants saw their motivations and influences for their fitness practices to be.The data arising from the group shifted the project’s focus from “fitness” toward broader questions about what it means to be “healthy” in today’s culture. In the context of pervasive neoliberal notions of health, my analysis explores some lines of intersection between social class and fitness/health as they relate to discourses of physical capital (Bourdieu, 1978, 1996; Shilling, 2003, 2004) and healthism in today’s society (Crawford, 1980, 2006). My analysis reveals that many young women are negotiating a paradox in that they engage in fitness practices, despite their knowledge of feminist body image critiques. The desire to build and convert physical capital and the intense pressure to appear “healthy” in the midst of a supposed “obesity epidemic” are strong motivators for the women’s fitness practice routines. The young women in my study are reifying a socially constructed hierarchy of bodies which favours thin bodies over fat bodies. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-14 10:24:36.797

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This study examined the relationships between social physique anxiety (SPA) and physical activity and sedentary behaviours among older adolescents. The research was grounded in self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Three hundred and eighty one males and females completed scientifically-supported questionnaires. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance revealed that male adolescents reported lower SPA and higher competence, relatedness, self-determined motivation, and physical activity levels compared to females. Regression analyses supported the integration of SPA in SDT, and the main tenets of SDT were maintained. Specifically, the basic psychological needs were important correlates of motivation, and motivation was a positive correlate of PA behaviour and a negative, albeit weak, correlate of sedentary behaviour. Collectively, these findings suggest that SPA experiences can be understood within a motivational framework that explains the functional role played by SPA on health behaviour.

In this research, I explore the body life history of six women, interweaving my own, focusing in particular on the "crossroads" between preadolescence and adolescence. 'My' participants and I do a form of memorywork, looking for an understanding of the meaning of body in the construction of girls' and women's subjectivity. Using photographs, the writing of a third person narrative and in-depth interviews, 'my' participants and I generate a biography of the body. I focus on two emerging themes, body commentary and movement or physical activity, and their impact on the lives of adolescent girls. I emphasize the importance of continuing to explore the current discourse on girls, while simultaneously questioning it.

Relatively little is known about the relation between body image satisfaction and self-esteem to academic behaviour in pre-adolescent and adolescent girls and boys. The current study is guided by three research questions. The first question is to examine how does body image satisfaction and self-esteem relate individually and collectively with academic behavior? The second question is to examine how much do the relationships between body image satisfaction, self-esteem and academic behavior differ across grades 7, 8, and 9? The third question is to examine how much do the relationships between body image satisfaction, self-esteem and academic behavior differ across genders? A correlational research design is adopted for this study. The data is analyzed using multiple regressions to examine various relations. This study analyzed secondary data gathered from 161 girls and boys from a junior high school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada as part of the school plan for the 2011 - 2012 academic year. Self-esteem had high positive correlation to academic behavior for both girls and boys across grades 7 - 9. Other highlight was that only for grade 9; body image satisfaction had a low positive correlation to academic behaviour.