The comparison of body image perceptions and self-esteem levels of private and public high school students

The The concepts of "body image" and "self-esteem" play an effective role on teenagers in the period of adolescence. The rapid development of the body caused by adolescence may lead a teenager to be over sensitive about his/her physical appearance and exaggeration of this sensitivity may negatively affect the quality of the teenager's life. A big perceptual gap between "desired body shape" and "self-body shape" in the mind of a teenager may cause him/her to have poor self-image and low self-esteem, to keep away from social interactions and activities, to feel inadequate and to develop character flaws and behavioral disorders. In this regard, this paper studies the correlation of perceived body image and self-esteem levels of high school students and how these levels change with various demographic variables. The research data of this study is gathered from 509 high school students (257 female, 252 male) in the cities of Istanbul, Balıkesir and Çanakkale. In this research; Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Body Perception Scale and Personal Information Forms are used to process the collected data. The findings of this research indicate a positive and meaningful correlation between body image scores and self-esteem scores. The results, furthermore, show that the variables of monthly family income, regular physical activities (sports) and psychological health have a direct impact on body image scores and self-esteem scores of the students. On the other hand, the empirical findings do not show any influence of the variables of school type (private vs public), gender, grade level, location (city) and being on a diet on these scores. Aforementioned results are later discussed in the lights of current psychological literature. Keywords: Body image, body image satisfaction, self-esteem, high school students,teenager looks, adolescent, adolescence, psychology, behavioral disorders