Appearance Comparison, Body Shape Dissatisfaction and Exercise Addiction among Young Adults

Description

Anshika Mehta, Chandni Rani, and Kanchan Verma (Department of Psychology, Amity University Punjab, Mohali, Punjab)

The increasing societal emphasis on physical appearance has contributed to concerns regarding appearance comparison, body shape dissatisfaction and exercise addiction among young adults, with gender playing a significant role. The present research aimed to investigate the gender difference between appearance comparison, body shape dissatisfaction and exercise addiction and relationship between appearance comparison, body shape dissatisfaction, physical and exercise addiction. Purposive sampling method has been used to collect the data. Current sample comprises 72 males and 77 females. The tools used in the study were the Physical Appearance Comparison Scale Revised (PAC- R Thompson, 1991), the Body Shape Questionnaire 8C (BSQ 8C, Evans & Dolan, 1993), and the Exercise Addiction Inventory (EAI, Szabo & Griffiths, 2004). IBM SPSS was used in the analysis of the data using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests and Pearson correlation analysis. The results revealed that there were highly significant gender variations in the physical appearance comparison, body shape dissatisfaction and exercise addiction. The findings showed a strong positive correlation between physical appearance comparison and body shape dissatisfaction with exercise addiction among female participants. For males, physical appearance comparison was strongly associated with body shape dissatisfaction and exercise addiction; however, the relationship between physical appearance comparison and exercise addiction was not statistically significant.