A research on weight loss behavior among young people in terms of family life satisfaction

Individuals experience various physical transitions depending on the period of their lives and their ideas for their bodies which are shaped by this period and its circumstances. In other words, young people experience a dense physical transition and have a great awareness about their bodies in the youth period. In this period, while young person's individual decisions are becoming important, the person also tries to catch up with the social expectations. Using various channels, the society sends messages to young people for their physical appearance and young people try to reach out to the ideal body accepted by the society. Nowadays, the 'thin' and 'weak' body is accepted as the ideal body. Family life satisfaction plays an important role on what type of body does the young person have and his / her tendencies about weight loss behavior. Young person's family life satisfaction where she / he experiences the socialization process has multiple dimensions starting from meeting the fundamental needs such as feeding and shelter, till achieving intra-familial relationship satisfaction. This research focuses on qualitative aspects of family life satisfaction effecting weight loss behavior such as; family integrity, young person's intra-familial relationships (relationships among parents, parent-child relationship, sibling relations), parents' regard towards the young person, intra-familial responsibilities and young person's inclusion in family's decision making process. The main focus of this work is to understand the subjective aspects of family life satisfaction on young people's weight loss behavior. Therefore; the study explains this behavior based on young people's self-expressions using qualitative methods. It aims to understand young people's perspectives for 'the meaning of a weak body', 'the importance of having a weak body' and 'the methods that they use to lose weight' with respect to the reasons for losing weight. Moreover, the study explains the problems in young people's personal and family lives caused by their weight loss behavior. This study is designed as a qualitative research. The data of the study is obtained by conducting in-depth interviews with 17 young people (2 male, 15 female) who are between 18 and 24 years old. In this research, it is determined that the importance of reaching out to an ideal and desired body is significantly important as a cause of young people's weight loss behavior. Weight loss experiences are especially important for young people because the meaning of the body that is obtained through these experiences is to have 'an ideal body', 'a beautiful body' and 'a body that she / he herself / himself and other people like'. Having a weak body also means to have higher self-confidence in their personal and family lives. Another result of the study shows that family life satisfaction affects young people for developing a tendency towards weight loss behavior or experience. Corruption of the family integrity or in other words, losing one or both parents because of a death or a divorce has an impact on young person's eating habit. Young person being overweight becomes a focus point with teasing and criticism in intra-familial relationships established especially with the father and siblings and parental disregard plays an important role in young person's gaining weight and maintaining weight loss behavior. This research was supported by Tubitak 2214-A Program. Key Words Quality of Life / Life Satisfaction, Quality of Family Life / Family Life Satisfaction, Weight Loss Behaviour, Youth, Qualitative Research