Assessment of body image appreciation and social interaction anxiety among healthcare students

Body image is a multifaceted concept which involves how an individual think, feels and behaves towards their own body. A person’s conception about their physical appearance and the views and/or emotions arising from these conceptions describes body image satisfaction. Typically, there is the rise and fall of body image satisfaction through childhood to adolescence. This happens due to a sequence of advanced changes at the neural as well as endocrine levels for a prolonged period which therefore leads to complex changes in the body shape, which also involves the development of primary and secondary sexual characters. Dissatisfaction with one’s body is more prevalent in adolescent girls and boys. Body image dissatisfaction may contribute as an underlying factor of social interaction anxiety among the adolescents. Individuals begin to compare themselves to others leading to depressive symptoms, social avoidance and low self-esteem. On the contrary, adolescents with good body image satisfaction show diminished anxiety manifestation. This study aims to assess correlation, association between body image satisfaction and social interaction anxiety among the healthcare adolescents evaluate their impression on a various quality in the domain of life which also includes psychological functioning, academic outcomes and interaction skills.