BODY SHAPE CONCERNS AMONG ADOLESCENTS

The Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) is a 34-item self-report questionnaire that measures the degree of body shape dissatisfaction. To date, the BSQ has not been used with adolescents. The present study compared the BSQ scores of five adolescent subject samples: Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Bulimia Nervosa (BN), Subclinical Bulimia Nervosa (SB), Subclinical Anorexia Nervosa (SA), and non-eating-disordered adolescent females (C). Results show that patients with BN have the highest levels of body dissatisfaction. All clinical groups had higher BSQ scores than subjects in the comparison sample but only the BN patients had significantly higher scores. The mean BSQ score for the Comparison group was higher than published means for non-eating-disordered adult samples. The two major findings of the study are that significant body shape concerns are particular features of patients with bulimia nervosa but that some body shape concerns are common among non-eating-disordered adolescent females.