Background:

Over the past decade, overweight and childhood obesity has increased markedly, and children are therefore dissatisfied with their body image due to the beauty canons established in today’s society. The purpose of this paper was to examine the level of obesity and body satisfaction based on sociodemographic and contextual variables of the educational center as well as the relationship they have with the physical self-concept on a sample of primary school and compulsory secondary school students city of Badajoz.

Methods:

The instruments used in the study were the questionnaire of Physical Self-concept (CAF) and questionnaire of Bodily Silhouettes.

Results:

The study involved 1.093 schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 years old (M = 11.6) from 19 educational centers.

Conclusions:

There is a high percentage of overweight students (20%) and a high percentage of satisfied students with their body image (79%). Regarding the relationship between the level of obesity and body satisfaction with sociodemographic and contextual variables we can see how obesity presents significant differences depending on the nature of the center and the educational offer. On the other hand, the correlation analyzes carried out reveal significant differences between the level of obesity and body dissatisfaction with some scales of physical self-concept. You can also observe significant differences between the level of obesity of the school with body dissatisfaction (more cases than expected of students satisfied with their body image with normal weight and fewer cases than expected of students satisfied with their body image with overweight and obesity).

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