Exploring Uniformity in Diversity: A Comparative Study of Filipino Adolescents and Adults' Perspectives on Body Image and Its Correlates

Adolescence is characterized by considerable changes in terms of physical, social, cognitive, and emotional development. At this stage, they typically undergo both genderspecific and gender-neutral physiological changes due to puberty such as increases in testosterone for both genders. Ellison and Reiches (2012) described physical diversities such as breast development, weight gain, and menarche for girls, and muscle development, deepened voice, and increased body hair for boys. As for adults, they gain broader and tempered perspectives brought by some measures of maturity, better exposure to various influencing agents like media, family, peer and colleague and other socializing agents, and improved sense of identity. Somerville et al (2013), thus, argue that it is predictable to have an obvious spike in self-consciousness during adolescence as young people begin to grapple with their sense of identity. This uncertainty in identity and seeking of approval makes adolescents particularly vulnerable to lower self-esteem (Wu, Watkins, & Hattie, 2010), which in turn is associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes. On the other hand, among adults, body image is treated more as a multidimensional, subjective and dynamic concept that encompasses a person’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about his or her body (Grogan, 2008). Body image is not limited to the aesthetic characteristics of the person as most adolescents see them. As people mature, they take into consideration their state of health, skills, and sexuality (Luskin, & Mccann, 2011). Despite being relatively constant over time, body image does change in certain contexts such as specific age maturity, vulnerabilities and variations after exposure to greater sources like media, peers, home factors, societal or community expectations. The final results then depend on personal factors (such as self-esteem, self-optimism and self-outcomes), interpersonal factors (family, peers and media messages), biological factors (genetic traits, increased body mass index, a series of pathologies), and cultural factors (social values and norms). This study – being in the second stage of a three-year research activity generally aimed to compare the adolescents and adults’ perspectives on body image to further understand the intricacies of body image as people go through stages of physical, emotional, cognitive and social maturity. Findings revealed that the adolescents considered self-aggrandizement as having modest influence on body image perspectives. However, body acceptance, physical contact, sex and sexuality and vitality greatly contributed to their perspectives on body image. Except for sex and sexuality which indicated no significant difference, the rest of the four domains had shown significant differences. The adolescents manifested great self-esteem and self-optimism but had moderate valuation of their self-outcome. The adolescents and adults had significant differences in their levels of self-esteem, self-optimism and self-outcome. Both adolescents and adults’ perspectives on body image were correlated with self-esteem, self-optimism and self-outcome. The adolescents and adults had similar ranking of factors that influence body image perspectives. Among adolescents in descending order, the top-three most influential factors on body image perspectives were: parents, peers, and sibling while adults considered the top-three influencing factors as: parents, siblings and peers. The study concluded that at least among adolescents who are in school, the most influential domains contributory to their perspectives on body image were body acceptance, physical contact, sex and sexuality and vitality. The adolescents and adults’ perspectives on body image differed significantly. The adolescents exhibited immense positive self-confidence and encouraging social role functioning but possessed modest valuation of their self-outcome, especially in overcoming symptom distress. The adolescents and adults varied in their levels of self-esteem, selfoptimism and self-outcome and home factors such as the influence of parents, siblings and peers remained to be rich fertile areas where perspectives on body image are formed.