Outward appearance performs a great role and understood as important as the element to judge the person as the visual value becomes heightened because of a diversity of image media in contemporary society. The social and cultural environment that the ...
Outward appearance performs a great role and understood as important as the element to judge the person as the visual value becomes heightened because of a diversity of image media in contemporary society. The social and cultural environment that the yardstick for beauty and success of women is the slim body and the social atmosphere that prefers the gorgeous outward appearance lead many young women to adhere to outward appearance and morbid diet, which has come to a forefront as their physical and spiritual problem. Dancers showing their movement through the body have a great desire and interest in the slim body more than any other group and want the long and slim body as a necessary element. Their diet is becoming their daily experience. The sensitively reflected body image of dancers is mostly their body shape reflected in their feeling or the mirror and perceived by the evaluation of others, not by accurate measurement and judgement. Though some dancers might have normal weight or underweight, they felt unsatisfied and practiced the dietary therapy, leading to a dangerous result in both the physical problem and the mental problem.
Accordingly, it is necessary to identify the difference between the actual figure and ideal figure of the female college majoring in dance. Seeing that the degree of subjective evaluation and perception on the dancer's body, this has an important meaning from a perspective of inducing the female college students majoring in dance with the extremely high interest in the body image to have a positive body image. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the difference in perception between the actual and ideal body image of female college students majoring in dance by using the body mass index(BMI) most conveniently and much used to measure the actual degree of obesity. That is, it was intended to identify what body mass index make them to feel unsatisfied with their body(difference in perception between the actual and the ideal body image). Female college students enrolled in 12 colleges located in Seoul and Konggi Province were selected for the purpose of study. To calculate the participants' body mass index, their height and weight values were confirmed in a self-reported way. To measure the difference between the actual body image and the ideal body image, the dissatisfaction with the body image, this study employed 17 expanded scales of the Contour Drawing Rating Scale(Thompson & Gray, 1995) in consideration of the characteristics of the groups of dance majors. An attempt was made to identify the values of height and weight in a self-reported way to calculate the participants' body mass index, frequency analysis was conducted in descriptive statistics and percentage were calculated to identify the study questions. r, the correlation coefficient between the perceived dissatisfaction with the body mage and the body mass index, was calculated, and standard multiple regression analysis was conducted. Statistical analysis was conducted using the SPSS 14.0. The following conclusion was drawn through this research method and procedure:
1. Taking an overall look at the level of the body size of the female college students majoring in dance classified by the body mass index, they belonged to the category of normal weight and underweight. The ballet majors had the highest proportion of underweight factors compared to other majors according to the level of body size by dance type.
2. Only 10% of the female college students majoring in dance felt satisfied with their current body image regardless of dance types. 76.8% of them perceived that they had overweight and only 11.4 perceived that they had underweight.
3. The female college students majoring in dance perceived that they had overweight regardless of the degree of the body size.
4. As for the body mass index of participants by dance type, the female college students majoring in contemporary dance(19.02) showed the highest body mass index, followed by the female college students majoring in Korean dance(18.64) and female ballet majors(18.26). The group of the female college students majoring in contemporary dance felt unsatisfied with their body image at 18.5, the basis point of normal weight, whereas the Korean dance group and the ballet group felt unsatisfied with the body image at the level of 18.2 and 17.90, lower than 18.5.
The characteristic result found in this study is that the high proportion of the dance majors perceived their body size as underweight more than the actual one regardless of their dance types. Though they might have underweight, they felt unsatisfied with their body image. That is, there was a difference in the level of dissatisfaction felt about their body image according to dance types. Accordingly, the results of this study can become one important indicator for the female college students majoring in dance and suggest that it is necessary to perceive their body correctly through a little more systematic and accurate understanding and measurement of it rather than depend on the reflection into the mirror or others' evaluation of it.