Body Image And The Relationship With Mental Health Of Undergraduates In Art

Studies about body-image has gained more and more attention since 1990s. Body-image how an individual view its body as well as the relation between self and body, whether familiar or distant, satisfactory or disagreeable. It is closely related to people's mental health, since the emotion and the cognition people hold towards their bodies to some extent determine their mental health status. The research is completed with undergraduates in art, who tend to have a closer body-self relation, since the appearance of their body plays a significant role in their study and future career development. Thus it is reasonable to hypothesize that their body-image has a vital impact upon their mental health.Scientific areas concerning body-image have been researched in other countries, but in China, studies in this area have just been started, and most of the present studies are in the medical and cosmetic fields. The study of the body-image of the undergraduates in art is a new topic in the whole field. Our research explored the body-image, the mental health status and the relationship between them of the undergraduates in art, providing the theoretical evidence for the mental health education, preventability and the diagnosis for the mental sickness of those students.Questionnaires and interview were applied as the methods in our research. Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire, EPQ-RSC and SCL-90 were adopted to collect data. Body-image evaluation and Body-image orientation as independent valuables, mental health status of the art students as dependent valuable, we executed the regression of various valuables. 4 art students were randomly selected from universities in Shanghai to participate in the case interview to collect information as supplement for the questionnaire survey.Comparing the body-image status and the index of mental health of art students and the students with other majors, we came to the conclusion as follows:1 Compared to the students majoring in other subjects, the art students are slimmer while they have worse body-image status, worrying about gaining weight and tending to overestimate their own weight. Their concern about fitness and evaluation of health...