72 | nº 29, pp. 61-74 | doxa.comunicación
July-December of 2019
Adolescents and body cult: the influence of Internet advertising in search of the idealized male body
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
Graph 5
Source: Own elaboration from the data obtained.
Regarding the question that sought to delve into the amount of physical and nutritional effort they considered they should make to be physically healthy and fit, all the children responded that they still have to do “very much /enough” effort, although with a tendency to rise in the experimental group, a 70.4% of those who viewed Block A compared to 61.4% of those who viewed Block B. However, the rest of the percentages and distribution between the experimental group, Block A and the control group Block B, differ significantly. The former consider that 28.2% have to make “neither much nor little” effort, as opposed to 20.1% for the other group. And 1.4% “little or nothing” effort compared to 18.5% of the group that saw neutral advertising.
Girls from either groups divide their answers mainly between “very much/enough” effort, around a 30%, and “neither too much nor too little” effort with percentages averaging 45 to 50%.
Finally, the question that referenced whether they had ever gone to the Internet to look for information on how to improve their physical appearance, 89% of the experimental group and 86% of the control group answered that they had looked for information of this type in this media. It is significant that, in both samples it indicates the percentage is similar, concern for physical appearance and its improvement is a prominent and important issue among adolescents. Referring to the type of content they were looking for in open-ended questions, the answers were basically fashion and make-up for females and the performance of physical exercises and sports routines for males. However, the boys in the experimental group showed a greater interest in continuing to search for and inform themselves about the performance of physical exercises for bodybuilding that the control group did not demonstrate.