German children are supposedly too fat

Many adolescents are dissatisfied with their bodies

05/16/2012

Many German children find themselves too fat, even if they are not actually overweight, according to a study by the University of Bielefeld under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The researchers of the "WHO - Collaborating Center" at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Bielefeld devoted themselves in the context of their study to the body feeling of adolescents. The self-assessment of the interviewed teenagers revealed that many have significant problems with their figure. In international comparison, the German youth feel more often too fat, as the adolescents in countries such as France, Poland, Turkey or even the United States. „The German youth are sad leaders in matters of body dissatisfaction“, emphasized the psychologist and health scientist Prof. Dr. med. Petra Kolip, head of the study at the University of Bielefeld.

Half of the girls have problems with their own figure
Of the 15-year-old girls and boys interviewed, according to the results of the current study, a considerable proportion of them have considerable problems with their own figure. Girls are much more affected than boys. More than half (53 percent) of the girls rated themselves as too fat, although objectively speaking, they were not overweight, the researchers report. The same was true for 30 percent of the boys interviewed. The dissatisfaction with their own body goes back to the mediated by the media ideal of beauty, so girls should be extremely slim and boys particularly athletic. The 15-year-old girls have even more problems here than the boys, as they tend to move away from the slimming ideal during puberty. „With puberty, the hips round“, what makes some teenage girls apparently, Prof. Dr. Kolip.

Dissatisfaction with one's own body increases
In order to facilitate an international comparison of the health behavior and physical well-being of young people, the WHO study surveyed 200,000 young people at local research centers in 39 Western and Eastern European and North American countries. In Germany, 5,000 young people provided information about the self-assessment of their bodies. „Common to all countries is that the dissatisfaction with the body increases with age“, stressed the head of the German part of the study. On average, 40 percent of girls and 22 percent of boys in the study states said they found themselves too fat. (Fp)

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