The relationship between internet usage, body image and eating attitudes of a group of high school students'

The Statement of the Problem: The internet usage ratio which increases and becomes prevalent affects people's functionality negatively and then unhealthy usage occurs. Especially, adolescents are in the risk group for problematic internet use. Body image concept defines emotions and ideas about individuals own body. Physical development and change are in large proportions in adolescence, therefore body image is very important for adolescents. Eating disorders increase in the last years; particularly among young girls. The purpose of this research is adolescents' who studies in high schools examine internet usage frequencies, behaviors of problematic internet use and relationship between problematic internet use, socio-demographic variables, body image and eating attitudes. Method: 274 (%40,5 male - %59,5 female) voluntary high school students who live in İstanbul participated in this study. The age interval was among 14-18 years. The data collection tools were Socio-demographic Information and Data Form, Problematic Internet Use Scale-Adolescent Form, Body Image Scale and Eating Attitude Test. SPSS (Statistical Package Program for Social Science) for Windows 24.0 program was used for the analysis of obtained data. Frequency Analysis was used to detect distribution of Socio-Demographic Information and Data Form's variables. Independent T-Test Analysis and One-Way Variance Analysis (ANOVA) were used to detect relationships between applied scales and variables which were in Socio-Demographic Information and Data Form. Pearson Correlation was used to detect relationships between applied scales. Regression Analysis was used to detect predictive effects of applied scales. Results: Gender does not have a statistically significant difference for Problematic Internet Use-Adolescent Form; but Body Image Scale and Eating Attitude Test have significant differences. The scores of female students' Body Image Scale was significantly higher than male students'. Also; female students' Eating Attitude Test scores was significantly higher than male students'. Conclusion: There is significant and positive correlation between problematic internet use and eating attitude. Also; there is significant and positive correlation body image and eating attitude. On the other hand; there is no significant correlation between problematic internet use and body image. Keywords: Adolescence, Problematic Internet Use, Body Image, Eating Attitude, Eating Disorders