Body satisfaction and associated factors among urban junior high school students in China

Objective To examine current status and influencing factors of body satisfaction among junior high school students in cities of China. Methods A cross-sectional study including physical measurement and questionnaire survey was conducted among 4 114 first- and second-year students selected with multistage random cluster sampling from 30 junior high schools in 6 Chinese cities(Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Kunming)between September 2012 and August 2013.Multivariate logistic regression was adopted to analyze factors correlated with body satisfaction. Results The rates of satisfaction with body height, weight, and shape were 44.77%, 38.18%, and 42.83%, respectively.The results of multivariate logistic regression revealed that the male students were more satisfied with their height (odds ratioOR=1.44 and 1.23 for high and moderate satisfaction)compared to the female students;under-estimation of height would lower the satisfaction with height among all the students (OR=0.70 and 0.71 for high and moderate satisfaction);male (OR=1.99) and second-year students (OR=1.51) were more satisfied with their weight, while overweight (OR=0.23), obesity (OR=0.10), and over-estimation of weight would lower the level of high-satisfaction with body weight;the moderate and high satisfaction with body shape were influenced by gender (male:OR=1.36 and 2.03), grade (second-year:OR=0.92 and 1.64), body weight (underweight:OR=1.49 and 1.98;overweight:OR=0.24 and 0.40;obesity:OR=0.23 and 0.11), and over-estimation of body weight (OR=0.50 and 0.58) among the students. Conclusion Body satisfaction is generally at a low level and influenced by gender, grade, body weight, and self-assessed height and weight among Chinese urban junior high school students.