A comparative study of body image among rural and urban adolescents

This study is aimed at investigating body image differences among rural and urban adolescents of Haryana. A questionnaire based survey study focusing on adolescents was designed using the random sampling. The subjects investigated were rural and urban high secondary and senior secondary school students of Haryana. The sample consisted of 400 male and 400 female adolescents of age group 14 to 19 years. Body Image questionnaire constructed by T.F CASH (2000) was used to asses’ body image perception. T- test was used for the statistical analysis. Obtained result found no significant difference among rural and urban population in all selected groups with regard to body image perception except urban high secondary female, urban senior secondary female, urban high secondary and rural senior secondary adolescents who have significantly greater self-ideal disparity with strongly held physical ideals as compare to rural high secondary female, rural senior secondary females, rural high secondary and urban senior secondary adolescents who have important congruence across all physical attributes.