AUDIOVISUAL STRATEGY FOR THE ACCEPTANCE OF BODY IMAGE IN ADOLESCENTS FROM THE ECUADORIAN HIGHLANDS

Knowing the nutritional habits of a society makes possible to intervene with rigor in those factors that can lead to serious health problems, such as anorexia or bulimia. Adolescents are a group of special attention in this field because they are the ones who suffer the most physical changes in so few years. Currently, the Ecuadorian country does not consider these problems as public health issues, so it is not granting resources to deal with them. This research uses communication strategies to improve the body image of adolescents in the center of the Ecuadorian highlands. A questionnaire was given to 350 baccalaureate students about habits, possible eating disorders and the degree of acceptance of body image. Half of them were previously made the audiovisual strategy of witnessing various short videos related to these issues, followed by a debate about the viewing. The results showed how the control group had a worse self-image body of themselves with respect to the group that attended the proposed communication strategy. It is concluded that the dynamics used can be useful as part of the interventions that should be carried out if one wants to alleviate these problems and improve adolescent health.