OBJECTIVE: To analyze the prevalence of body dissatisfaction and its correlations with age, sex and the nutritional status of teenagers. METHODS: The sample consisted of high school students in cities with up to five thousand inhabitants in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) and the Escala Evaluacíon de Insatisfacíon Corporal para Adolescentes (EEICA) were instruments used to assess the adolescents' body dissatisfaction. The age, sex, weight and height to calculate body mass index was also collected in schools. For statistical analyses the variance test and correspondence analysis were used. RESULTS: Out of 413 participants, 49.2% and 50.8% were in the intermediate and final phases of adolescence, respectively. Of this total, 178 were boys and 235 were girls and, most (71.9%) eutrophic. The BSQ score mean was 66.78 ± 29.63 and 26.4% had some level of body dissatisfaction; the EEICA average score for body dissatisfaction was 17.96 ± 11.7. The single and multiple correspondence analyses have shown that sex and nutritional status are modalities with higher differences in rates of body dissatisfaction. CONCLUSION: In spite of the low prevalence of body dissatisfaction, some teenagers from the small towns surveyed had severe dissatisfaction with their body image, especially girls and adolescents with overweight and suffering from obesity.
Body image; adolescent; sex; nutritional status
