BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Body image may be expressed as how people view themselves in the mirror ,or in their
minds. It incorporates the memories, experiences, assumptions, and comparisons of
one’s own appearance, and overall attitudes towards one height, shape, and weight. An
individual’s impression of their body is also assumed to be a product of ideal’s cultivated
by various social and cultural ideals(Body Image,2018). Body image is mental and
emotional: it’s both the mental picture that a person has of he/she feels it when you
looking in a mirror (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2015).

Body image is concern of individuals who compares themselves to others. Sometimes

body image is negatively impact by one or more significant events. For example , a
gymnast who is continually chided by her coach and allow athletes to lose a little weight
, may develop a deeply ingrained and long-standing dissatisfaction with her body, no
matter how thin she becomes( Weight & Body Image Disorders).Research shows that
concerns related to one’s body image can often be explored in therapy, and cognitive
behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to be effective at treating concerns related to
a body image that may be having a negative impact on an individual’s well-being. The
aim of the therapy is to reduce preoccupation with perceived flaws and help the
individual in treatment to develop a more realistic and positive perception of the body.

Individuals may be encouraged to engage in self-monitoring, often by keeping a diary, in

order to become more aware of both the negative and positive thoughts and emotions
regarding their body, as well as the factors that trigger them. The therapist can help
individuals to modify thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that may be unhealthy, and
individuals may become better able to accept and love their bodies as a result.

However, it is also possible that the changes in social physique anxiety are associated
with changes in the other psychological factors such as self-concept .Exercisers with
high and low social physique anxiety differed in terms of self-concept. Self-esteem is
also closely related to body esteem in both men and women and it is considered as one
of the strongest predicators of body esteem. This is evident in individuals with eating
disorders, who , according to a prominent account of bulimia nervosa, judge
themselves primarily in terms of their shape, weight or eating habits. This over-
evaluation of body and diet is the fundamental maintaining mechanism of their eating
disorder (Skorek, Malgorzata, Dunham et.al, (2014). Self-esteem is also related to body
esteem in both men and women and it is considered one of the strongest predictors of
body esteem.

Many have suggested that young men and women have been socialized to believe that
appearance is primary basis for self-evaluation by others, and low satisfaction with
one’s body is very often associated with low self-esteem and vice versa( Skorek et. Al
2014).

Body dissatisfaction as a subjective evaluation and the affective component of the multi-
dimensional construction of body image (Cash,2002). Body dissatisfaction is currently a
major health concern and is becoming the norm for children and adolescents. The
other measures concentrate on only some specific aspects of body image, the
Multidimensional Body-Self Relation Questionnaire (MBSRQ ; Cash, 2000) has the
advantage of assessing multiple aspects of body image and being a widely used
instrument on the English-language area.

In addition, cognitive information-processing model for the body image is one type of
cognitive bias that stems from a self-schema that includes memory stores related to
body sizes and eating that are easily activated an readily accessible for retrieval from
memory. This self-schema is presumed to draw the person’s attention to body and food-
related stimuli and to bias interpretations of self-relevant events in favor of fatness
interpretations.
The study on the influence of social comparison on the body image of senior high
school students may be beneficial to the following groups of people.