Thianthai Chulanee
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Int J Adolesc Med Health. 2008 Jan-Mar;20(1):33-9. doi: 10.1515/ijamh.2008.20.1.33.
(1) To learn how female and male adolescents view their dissatisfaction toward body parts, and (2) learn how gender-related dissatisfaction toward body parts in Thai adolescents differs from those studied in Western countries.
The researcher recruited 400 Thai male and female adolescents in Bangkok, attending high school to freshmen level, and ranging from 16-19 years, to participate in this study. Survey questionnaires containing questions related to the research objectives were distributed to each student. In addition, the researcher conducted in-depth follow-up interviews with 40 students to gain insightful data, which were beneficial for the content and percentage result analysis.
The findings show that Thai female and male adolescents viewed their dissatisfaction toward body parts differently. Whereas Thai female adolescents viewed their dissatisfied body parts individually and looked at their bodies in detail, Thai male adolescents tended to view their bodies as a whole and describe their dissatisfied body parts as problematic area(s). Moreover, some of the results in this study showed similarity with research conducted in the West. However, there were also differences that can be seen in detail showing a variation on the gender-related dissatisfied body parts names, percentage to each body part/area, and its beautified meanings. Like studies conducted in the West, female adolescents showed greater dissatisfaction toward their bodies and felt more pressure to fix problematic parts than did men.
How females and males view their bodies differently can be linked to greater incidence of dieting and eating disorders in females than in males.
（1）了解青少年男性和女性如何看待他们对身体部位的不满，以及（2）了解泰国青少年中与性别相关的身体部位不满与西方国家所研究的情况有何不同。
研究人员招募了400名就读于曼谷高中一年级、年龄在16至19岁之间的泰国青少年男女参与本研究。向每位学生发放了包含与研究目标相关问题的调查问卷。此外，研究人员对40名学生进行了深入的跟踪访谈，以获取有洞察力的数据，这有助于进行内容和百分比结果分析。
研究结果表明，泰国青少年男性和女性看待他们对身体部位的不满方式不同。泰国青少年女性会单独看待她们不满意的身体部位，并仔细审视自己的身体，而泰国青少年男性则倾向于将自己的身体视为一个整体，并将他们不满意的身体部位描述为问题区域。此外，本研究的一些结果与西方进行的研究相似。然而，也存在一些差异，具体表现在与性别相关的不满意身体部位名称、每个身体部位/区域的百分比及其美化含义上。与西方的研究一样，青少年女性比男性对自己的身体表现出更大的不满，并且在修复问题部位方面感受到更大的压力。
男性和女性看待自己身体的方式不同，这可能与女性比男性更高的节食和饮食失调发生率有关。
