Week 12: Conclusion

Thank you so much for joining me in the final blog post for my 2017 senior project! It has been a blast reading research papers and conducting this survey to better understand the correlations between the perceptions of beauty and health among the volunteers from BASIS Independent schools. The following passages explain my findings and how they relate to the previous findings I have read.

Population

Please keep in mind that the majority of those surveyed were from families of relatively high socio-economic status (90.8%) and of Asian or Pacific Islander descent (64.4%). An overwhelming majority (95.9%) have spent most of their teenage years in the United States; therefore, most of the participants have an American standard of beauty. Overall, the population had a good variety of genders and ages from 14 to 19 years old. There were 195 girls and 147 males. In total, there were 348 respondents; the other 6 individuals identified themselves as transgender or gender neutral. Due to the small population of other genders and for the sake of simplicity, most of the following analysis will be address the female and male population. In the future, I hope to conduct this study with other genders to see possible similarities or differences in overall trends.

Visual Analog Scale

With the help of a validated visual analog scale, the survey was able to measure each participant’s self-image and perception of the ideal body type. On a scale of 1 to 9, the majority of these teens believed they were one size larger than their ideal body type. Most of the respondents chose figures 3, 4 and 5 (the normal and healthy range, 71.8%). When asked “Which figure would you want to look like?” and “Which figure do you believe most people would find most attractive for someone of similar age to you?”, 87.9% and 88.2% of these adolescents respectively chose figures ranging from 2 to 4. This range may be proof that the ideal body image set by adolescents are unattainable because the goal is always to be a size smaller. These findings overlap with the results of a study conducted by Benjie Achtenberg Macalester College in 2006. With the participation of 27 ninth graders enrolled in a single trimester of health education at a Midwestern private Catholic high school in an urban area, this study found that “almost 75% of these female respondents said they say themselves as body type #3 and #4, but when asked what body type they wanted to be, almost 70% reported body type #2 and #3.” When analyzing the overall trend of the male respondents, I found a similar trend, but at a lower degree than the trend among female respondents.

Social Comparison Rating Scale

The Social Comparison Rating Scale allowed the survey to assess the participant’s perception of himself or herself as a “social agent within his group having physical appearance as a reference” (Ferreira 2011). For the sake of simplicity, I used the question “When I physically compare myself with my friends or other teenagers, I feel: “ as a benchmark. By grouping individuals based on their answer for this particular question, I was able to separate the participants into groups of varying self-image. The “Perceived Less Attractive” group was comprised of the respondents who chose answers 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the 10-point Likert scale. Those who chose 5 or 6 from the 10-point Likert scale were in the “Perceived Just as Attractive” group, leaving us with the “Perceived More Attractive” group with those who answered 7, 8, 9, and 10 on the 10-point Likert scale. The average scores on the Social Comparison Rating Scale showed the respondents finding themselves just as attractive as their friends and peers and one Likert point less attractive than celebrities. (This may be supported by the concept of “birds of a feather flock together,” If “of the a feather” could be interpreted as similar physical attractiveness, then the saying could be used to explain the general trend of respondents finding themselves just as attractive as their friends.)

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

As the name suggests, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale allowed my survey to evaluate the respondent’s self-esteem. The “Perceived Less Attractive” Group are mostly unsatisfied with themselves, wish they could have more respect for themselves, and feel that they are people of worth (64.3%, 84.9%, & 55.6% respectively). The “Perceived Just As Attractive” Group are mostly satisfied with themselves, wish they could have more respect for themselves, and feel that they are people of worth (78.9%, 65.6%, & 93.0% respectively). The “Perceived More Attractive” Group were mostly satisfied with themselves, wished they could have more respect for themselves, and felt that they were people of worth (88.3%, 52.1%, & 97.9% respectively). Overall, the majority of these individuals had self-worth, but they wished to have more self-respect. The only group that did not feel satisfied with themselves was the “Perceived Less Attractive” Group. This supports the study conducted by Davison and McCabe from 2006, concluding that “the relevance of body image to self-esteem was similar for boys and girls.” The data collected from my survey supports this with the difference in answers for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale from the three groups.

Health Body Survey

With the Healthy Body Survey, I was able to verify each participant’s perception of health status. The group that performed the best on the survey was the “Perceived Just As Attractive” group who had 54.7% getting all three questions correct compared to the 38.9% from the “Perceived Less Attractive” group and the 52.1% from the “Perceived More Attractive” group. The correlation between those with low self-esteem and their incorrect perception of health was not seen in the two other groups, suggesting a possible relationship between one’s factual understanding of health and self-image.

Patient Health Questionnaire

In 2003, the PHQ-2 was added to the available assessments for depression severity. This questionnaire gave participants scores from 0 to 6. Those with scores of 3 or more have a specificity of 92% for major depression, according to the “Medline Abstract for Reference 81 of ‘Screening tests in children and adolescents’”. As “Body Image, Physical Attractiveness, and Depression” written in 1985 explains, “the relationship between body image and depression [is] based primarily on clinical observation [...] these theorists did not follow up their positions with systematic research.” Although 122 out of 348 of the respondents scored 3 or higher on the PHQ-2, no direct relationship can be drawn between these individuals and their perception of beauty. The “Perceived Less Attractive” group had the highest percentage of individuals who scored 3 or above on the PHQ-2 (43.7%) while the “Perceived Just As Attractive” group had the lowest percentage of individuals scoring 3 or above (27.3%). The correlation between low self-image, self-esteem, perception of health, and highest frequency of depressed mood and anhedonia mirror results from similar studies conducted before; however, this survey does not have the capability to draw direct causation between these elements.

It has been a pleasure creating this website and updating my blog. I hope this conclusion was informative, and this series of blogs was entertaining. This particular blog is the longest and most accurate representation of my findings. Through the guidance of Ms. McCollum, Ms. Belcher and Dr. Nguyen and with the assistance of Ms. Toews and the BISV faculty, I was able to successfully complete the first phase of my survey and prepare for the next ones. In the near future, I hope to gather more data from participants of differing genders, ethnicities, socio-economic status, and ages. Please look forward to next year’s data collection! Until then, never forget that your individuality and confidence defines your attractiveness. “Embracing your true self radiates a natural beauty that cannot be diluted or ignored. Confident, powerful, untamable, bad*** you!” ~Steve Maraboli

#AboutSurvey #Research