Self-esteem and body image in relation to somatotypes

This thesis focuses on the relationship between body image and somatotypes in the young Czech student population. Previous studies have shown a relationship between body image and BMI, notwithstanding, somatotypes describe body morphology in a more detailed way. Somatotypes describe the amount of body fat (endomorphy), the amount of muscle mass and the robustness of bones (mesomorphy), and the length of arms and legs relative to the rest of the body (ectomorphy). Seventy-one women and seventy men participated in our study. They completed a battery of questionnaires (The Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire; The Body Figure Scale of Dosedlová et al., 2008; Rosengerg's self-esteem scale; State-Trait Anxiety Inventory - T; and Beck's Depression Inventory - II). Then they underwent an anthropometric measure of somatotype components (endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy) according to Carter and Heath's anthropometric method and were assigned to a certain somatotype. In our sample, there were 5 somatotypes in men (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorphic mesomorph, mesomorph-ectomorph and ectomorph) and 6 somatotypes in women (endomorph, endomorph- mesomoroph, mesomorph, mesomorph-ectomorph, ectomorph and the central type). The questionnaires' scores were then statistically compared between..