Klaipėdos universitetas

The article highlights that a modern society focuses on exclusive body care along with appearance of individuals and especially adolescents. Physical exterior of a person seems to be receiving an increasingly growing attention in everyday life situations, as beauty ideals shift in social environments along with requirements to comply with and pursue them. Research, analyzing body dissatisfaction, has received wide attention in a scholarly environment. Body related dissatisfaction has become a highly relevant issue, as it links to eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa and others, however there is a gap in research analyzing the pedagogical side of such issue. It is highly relevant to be aware of and understand body and body weight related problems because difficulties emerged during the early adolescence might persist during adulthood as well. Research aim – to reveal how adolescents perceive their physique and individual parts of their body and compare these self-assessments based on a gender. In 2012, using a research method of an anonymous survey a total of 1347 adolescents from 8th grades were surveyed. The research uses a questionnaire to study physique related self-assessment, designed by the author. Results obtained from the conducted research allow to conclude that research participants feel more dissatisfied with individual phenotype-dependent morphological and functional features of a body, which can be altered through well-chosen physical exercising. It was identified that research participants are more satisfied with individual morphological and functional features of a body, inherited from parents, i.e. genotype-dependent, which cannot be altered through exercising. Findings also reveal that respondents are mostly dissatisfied with shape, largeness and size of individual body parts as well as muscle weakness. Results also allow to conclude that significance attributed to certain elements of physique is gender-dependent.

The aim of the research is to explore the application of health promoting PA education methods applied by teachers of physical education in basic school. The survey included 136 teachers of physical education working in comprehensive schools of five Lithuanian cities and districts (Klaipėda, Kaunas, Kretinga, Šilalė, and Mažeikiai) selected by the convenience sampling method. Teacher survey was conducted in November – December 2012 by the academic staff of the Department of Physical Education of Klaipeda University. The article deals with some aspects of health promotion of non-exercising schoolchildren by physical activity in the context of the contemporary society. The outcomes of the conducted qualitative research and their interpretation are presented. The views of teachers of physical education on the physical activity promotion methods are analyzed, as well as their insights into the issue of physical activity promotion methods at school and major motives of schoolchildren’s exercising.