Abstract:

Negative body image is one of the most important problems affecting adolescents’ healthy growth. Understanding the harm of negative body image to adolescents and its influencing factors is of great significance to the physical and mental health of adolescents. The negative effects of negative body image on adolescents mainly include five aspects: self-concept, emotional experience, weight control strategies, eating disorder and social life; and the main influencing factors of adolescents' negative body image formation are biological factors (BMI), sociocultural factors (parents, peers and mass media) and psychological factors (personality factor and cognitive style). Future research is needed to further (1) develop the theoretical model of adolescent body image development from the perspective of biopsychosocial model; (2) examine the role of emerging factors such as social media; (3) elucidate the cognitive processing characteristics of adolescents in processing body-related information; (4) accelerate the localization speed of negative body image amongst Chinese adolescents.

Key words: negative body image, adolescents, negative effect