Prevalence of Body Dissatisfaction in Norwegian performance and regular lower secondary schools : An 8th grade sample, situated in the Oslo area

Background: Body dissatisfaction (BD) is a psychological phenomenon associated with both physical and mental illness. Society is in need of more research on the topic of body dissatisfaction and its prevalence among adolescents. Specifically, it is important to know more about the prevalence of BD in adolescents attending performance schools (specialized sport / ballet / music schools). Objective: The main objective of this thesis was to find the prevalence of BD among an 8th grade sample (from Oslo / Akershus, Norway), consisting of students from performance schools (sport / ballet / music) and regular lower secondary schools. Furthermore, the thesis focuses on differences in prevalence among gender and school type. The second objective was to look for associations between global self-worth and BD. Method: This is a cross-sectional study, consisting of quantitative retrospective data, collected using written self-report questionnaires. It includes 666 regular lower secondary school students, and 166 students from performance schools. An abbreviated version of the “Eating Disorder Examination Questionaire” (EDE-Q) was used to assess BD, and a revised version of Harter´s Self Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA-R) (Wichstrøm, 1995) was used to assess their global self-worth. Results: There are great gender differences in the prevalence of BD, and students from performance schools are less dissatisfied with their bodies compared to students from regular lower secondary schools. Furthermore, a negative correlation was found between global self-worth and BD in both genders. Conclusion: There is significantly lower prevalence of BD among boys than girls, and students attending performance schools are less dissatisfied with their body compared to the students from the regular schools. A clear association between global self-worth and BD was found