Media influences on body image perceptions among college students

As many as 10 million females and 1 million males in the U.S. are battling eating disorders, with a high prevalence found among college students. At the same time, these students are bombarded by print and electronic media with direct and indirect messaging and images that imply being thin is a highly desirable personal attribute. Such messaging may promote unrealistic and unhealthy body perceptions that predispose these young adults to eating disorders and health conditions related to inadequate nourishment or being underweight. To further explore this issue, a convenience sample of 237 male and 445 female undergraduate students at a Southeastern university were surveyed on their perceptions regarding their weight status, satisfaction with their body size, ideal clothing size for females, and exposure to messaging through television, movies, and magazines. Stepwise regression analyses of the respondent data revealed that gender, perception of weight status, perception of magazine articles as an important source of information about fashion and being attractive, feeling of pressure from TV/magazines to change their appearance, and the genre of television typically watched were strongly correlated with students' satisfaction with their body size. Perceived pressure from the media was also found to be a factor related to the dissonance in the students' perceived vs. actual weight status. The study findings provide college health educators and other health professionals with useful information on body image perceptions of college students and media influences on those perceptions, so that appropriate campus-based intervention and prevention strategies can be developed.