A study of American television shows and the perception of Filipino adolescent girls concerning body image

• Main Authors: Go, Giselle Karen Y., Pozon, Josephine C., Seng, Stephanie U.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2002
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11757
• Institution: De La Salle University

Adolescence is a stage where confusion arises. Not only are physiological changes occurring but psychological as well. The female adolescent is stuck in an in-between stage where she isn't quite a child anymore but neither is she an adult. These abrupt physical changes cause her to become unstable, she has to adapt to these changes and so she looks for standards to conform to. The media particularly television serve as the standard-the thinner the woman the better. It sets unrealistic goals for the teenage girl to follow. The researchers wanted to find out it the female characters in popular American TV show affected the actual and ideal body images of Filipino adolescent girls. In order to capture a wider scope of adolescent girls from different social classes, 120 high school students, from public and private schools, were asked to answer a questionnaire concerning body image and popular youth television shows. The data gathered shows that Filipino female adolescents are generally satisfied with their bodies. Although they do have an ideal body image, they do not resort to desperate measures to attain the ideal images. They are passive. The body image of the female personalities did not match the ideal characteristics of the Filipino teenage girl. The researchers suggest that personality traits may establish a better relationship between the idealized characteristics between the female TV personality and the Filipino teenage girl than the physical attributes.