Cross-cultural study of the different components of body dissatisfaction in community samples from Spain and Chile

Abstract

Background: the study of body dissatisfaction has been focused on their perceptual and cognitive-behavioral components, being the affective component the least analyzed, both in Spain and Chile. Until now, it has been observed more presence of body dissatisfaction in overweight women. This fact has been related with the thinness beauty ideal established by society. Objective: to compare the different components of body dissatisfaction (perceptual, cognitive-behavioral and affective) in adults in a community sample of both sexes of Spain and Chile. Method: the sample consisted of 390 participants and has been divided in two samples by country (n = 179 Chileans; n = 211 Spanish). At the same time, these groups were divided in two groups by body mass index (BMI) and also by sex. The different components of body dissatisfaction were evaluated using specific questionnaires for each of them. Results and conclusion: both in Spain and in Chile, people with overweight show more dissatisfaction in the perceptual and affective areas, especially women. However, cognitive-behavioral component is the only one where differences between countries were found, showing overweight Spanish women more dissatisfaction. These results verify a higher presence of body dissatisfaction in women with overweight (t = 4.14, p < 0.001, d = 0.72, IC = 0.22-1.12), related to the greater pressure on appearance in the female population.