Assessment of body image perception in healthcare university students/AVALIACAO DA PERCEPCAO DA IMAGEM CORPORAL EM UNIVERSITARIOS DA AREA DA SAUDE

Entry into the academic environment is accompanied by changes in the lives of university students, exposing these individuals to a new way of life and social life that can influence satisfaction with body image. This can be defined by the self-portrait that people imagine of their physical appearance and their bodies, being composed of variables such as anthropometric measurements, environmental and sociocultural aspects. The objective was to evaluate the perception of body image in university students in the health area. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. The study population consisted of 271 university students of both sexes, aged between 18 and 40 years old, enrolled in the Bachelor's Degree in Nutrition, Nursing and Medicine at a Public Higher Education Institution. Assessments were performed using the following instruments: Socioeconomic and Nutritional Questionnaire, Silhouette Scale (SS), Bodyshape Questionnaire (BSQ) and self-reported anthropometric assessment. As a result, 80.4% were female and 19.6% were male, with prevalence in the age group between 18 and 25 years. 72% of the students were in a eutrophic state. According to the BSQ, 59.4% were not dissatisfied with their body image and 40.6% had some degree of dissatisfaction. However, SS showed dissatisfaction with the body image of 77.9% of the students, whether for overweight or thinness. It was concluded that the body dissatisfaction of university students from health courses was predominant, since most were eutrophic, but still had some degree of dissatisfaction with their body.