Young Women's Body Image and Self-Protective Sexual Behaviors

Background:  Young women (ages 14 to 24) are at particularly high risk for STD acquisition.  The Young Women’s Project (YWP) is a longitudinal study looking at characteristics of young women and their sexual behaviors. 

Objectives:  This sub-study of YWP examined whether self-perceived face and body image were associated with certain risky sexual behaviors.

Methods:  Our study analyzed 153 females, primarily African American, recruited from selected healthcare clinics included in the pre-existing, de-identified YWP dataset.  The analysis restricted the dataset to the clinic visit proximal to the participant’s 18^th birthday.  Young women completed surveys about sexual risk factors, and perception of their body and face in comparison to their partner.  Data for sexual and condom self-efficacy, communication about sex, number of partners in the last 3 months and body image was analyzed.  Participants were divided into three groups based on their body image: those who felt they were more, less, or equally attractive than their last sexual partner.  Comparative attractiveness was recorded for both body and face. 

Results:  Our study determined that 93.5% of study participants indicated two or more sex partners within 3 months.  Multivariate analyses of variance found that the groups differed significantly in condom use self-efficacy, communication, and number of sexual partners when examining face comparative attractiveness (For face e.g. F (4,147) = 2.875, p = .004.) 

Conclusions:  A positive perception of face relative to a partner is associated with multiple sex partners, lower condom self-efficacy, and lower communication, which increases probability of STD acquisition.   

Implications for Programs, Policy, and Research: STD/HIV prevention efforts must address body image as it relates to polygamous relationships, and discussing safer sex options with sex partner(s) to reduce prevalence and incidence of sexually transmitted diseases.