The investigation of the relationship between bodyimage and life satisfaction in university students

Researches started with regard to body image in the field of psychology in the last century have also become widespread in the fields such as education and health. One of the important reasons of this is that someone's negative perceptions for his/her own body brings with it the possibility of affecting the whole life negatively (Arslangiray, 2013). When taking into consideration the possibility that the individual's body image will affect many areas of his life, it is thought that this perception may be an important factor affecting life satisfaction. In this research made for this reason, it is aimed to analyze the relationship between body image and life satisfaction in university students and to interpret it in terms of some sociodemographic variables. The research's sample is composed of undergraduate students who study in the Psychology Department of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Usküdar University located in Istanbul Province in the fall semester of 2017-2018 academic year. A total of 291 students, whose 175 are females and 116 males, have been included in the study. The Body Image Scale (BIS), Life Satisfaction Scale (LSS) and Demographic Information Form have been used to collect the research data. After the normality analysis of the data obtained from the scales was made, Normal distribution of VAÖ data, the t-test and ANOVA for body image scale and mann-whitney-u and Kruskal Wallis-h analysis techniques for life satisfaction scale have been benefited by using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) 23.0 package program because of the normal distribution of the data of the YDÖ. In the interpretation of the results a significance level of 0.05 is based on. Findings indicated that there was no significant relationship between the body image scores of the participants and the class level, where they receive education, parental education xv level, number of sisters and brothers, birth order of the child in the family, perceived economic status of the family and romantic relationship status scores. There was no significant relationship between life satisfaction scores and mother's education level, number of brothers and sisters, birth order of the child in the family, (romantic) relationship status and scores of status for doing exercise and sport. A significant difference has been found between body image scores and gender variation (p <0,05). Women's body image scores are higher than men's. This situation shows that women have more negative body images than men. A significant difference has been found between the level of body image and situations of doing regular exercises / sport (p<0,05). Those who do not exercise and who do exercise but leave it later have higher levels of body image than persons who exercise regularly. This result shows that the individuals who exercise regularly have more positive body images than the individuals who do exercise but leave it later and those who do not exercise regularly. A significant difference has been detected between the level of life satisfaction and gender (p <0,05). Female students' life satisfaction is higher than male students' life satisfaction. There has been a significant difference between life satisfaction levels and father's education levels (p<0,05). The life satisfaction level of the students whose father's education level is university is higher than others. There was a significant difference between life satisfaction levels and family's economic status (p <0,05). The life satisfaction level of the students with good economic status is higher than the students with medium economic status. There was a significant relation between body image scores and life satisfaction scores at low level (r = 0,150) and negative direction (p <0,05). However the increase in scores of the body image shows a negative body image, the increase of scores obtained from life satisfaction scale shows that the individual's life satisfaction is high. According to the main hypothesis of the research, it has been determined that the emotions and thoughts of the individuals about their bodies have an effective role on their life satisfaction. Key Words: Body Image, Life Satisfaction, University Students.