Social representations of the body: a study of adolescents in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Body changes are central to adolescence as a stage of life. To approach conflicts experienced by adolescents with body changes, this study aimed to identify social representations of the body among adolescents in the last year of primary school in private and municipal schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Participants were 13 to 18 years of age and studied in schools in neighborhoods with the highest and lowest scores on the Social Development Index. Focus groups were used to produce social representation of the body. Groups began by evoking five words that came to mind when hearing the word "body". The EVOC program was used to treat evoked words, complemented by thematic content analysis. Many teenagers spoke of "beauty" as synonymous with "beautiful body" and described a model of beauty: a muscular body for teenage boys and a slender and shapely body for teenage girls.