Understanding and addressing body dissatisfaction: communication challenges among technical college students

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the impact of body dissatisfaction on communication competencies among engineering college students and to put forth remedial strategies. As body dissatisfaction is still a grey area in research-related communication competencies, the researchers have focused on this arena. Sixty-one heterogeneous participants (male=30 and female=31) from one of the private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, India, participated during the summer semester. The judgment under the non-probability sampling technique was used. Moreover, rubrics were developed with four parameters: color complex, consciousness over their physique, shame and guilt, self-blaming, and lamentation. In addition, class observation techniques were used based on the aforementioned rubrics; the students accessed their classroom presentation using an evaluation sheet derived from the rubrics. The result revealed that around 70% of the participants suffered from body dissatisfaction, while the degree ranges from minimum to maximum levels. This hampers their effective communication and self-expression. With a holistic approach that combines mental health support, awareness-building workshops, peer mentorship, and communication skills training, the participants are mitigated by the impact of body dissatisfaction on communication within the student cohort.