F. Sobral et O. Vasconcelos, PERCEIVED SOMATOTYPE AS INDICATOR OF ACCURACY OF BODY-IMAGE, A METHODUSING SOMATOTYPE ATTITUDINAL DISTANCE, Perceptual and motor skills, 82(3), 1996, pp. 1107-1110
A method intended to assess accuracy of body image was applied to 52 C
aucasian girls aged 14 and 15 years. Each girl, after being somatotype
d by the Heath-Carter anthropometric method, was asked to select, amon
g ten somatotype standard photographs, the one she perceived closest t
o her own objective somatotype. The purposes of the research were (i)
to measure the distance between the objective and subjective judgement
s, self-perceived somatotypes by means of the somatotype attitudinal d
istance, and (ii) to assess the stability of the subjective somatotype
by a test-retest correlation. The girls were also asked to select the
pictures corresponding to the most preferred and aversive somatotypes
. The test-retest coefficients were significant for the three somatoty
pe choices. Hence, the method provides adequate stability and may be e
mployed to reproduce the discrepancies between body image and real bod
y build by a quantitative continuous measure.