Research Article Perceived Body Image, Eating Behavior, and Sedentary Activities and Body Mass Index Categories in Kuwaiti Female Adolescents Lemia H. Shaban, 1 Joan A. Vaccaro, 2 Shiryn D. Sukhram, 3 and Fatma G. Huffman 2 1 Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat, 13060 Kuwait City, Kuwait 2 Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA 3 Department of Biology, College of Staten Island, 2800 Victory Blvd, Oice 6S-132, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Fatma G. Hufman; hufmanf@iu.edu Received 22 June 2016; Revised 6 October 2016; Accepted 31 October 2016 Academic Editor: Alessandro Mussa Copyright © 2016 Lemia H. Shaban et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. he State of Kuwait has a growing obesity epidemic in both genders and all age groups; however, obesity rates in the young seem to be rising. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 169 Kuwaiti female adolescents attending both private and public schools spanning the six governorates in the State of Kuwait in order to explore female adolescents’ self-image, body dissatisfaction, type of school (private versus public), TV viewing, and computer games and their relationship to body mass index. Results. Approximately half the students classiied as obese perceived their body image to lie in the normal range. Females in the obese category were the most dissatisied with their body image, followed by those in the overweight category. Eating behavior, level of physical activity, school type, television viewing, computer/video usage, and desired BMI were not signiicantly associated with level of obesity. Conclusion. his study was one of the few studies to assess adolescent females’ body image dissatisfaction in relation to obesity in the State of Kuwait. he results suggest that including body image dissatisfaction awareness into obesity prevention programs would be of value. 1. Introduction Obesity prevalence in Kuwait is primarily a result of the efects of modernization, aluence, increased food consump- tion, and sedentary lifestyles [1, 2]. Other factors that play a key role in escalating rates of obesity are sociocultural factors, biological factors, eating behaviors, hours of tele- vision viewing, and time spent on computers and video games [3–6]. Children living in the Middle East have one of the highest prevalences of overweight and obesity in the world, with Kuwait having the highest childhood overweight problem among the Gulf countries. Kuwait is also among the countries with the highest rate of obesity within the last 33 years (1980–2013), with the prevalence exceeding 50% of adult females [4, 7]. Several studies indicated that females present a greater overweight and obesity concern in Kuwait as opposed to males [7–10]. he higher prevalence of overweight and obesity in females may be attributed to genetic diferences in fat storage; girls store more body fat than males in preparation for puberty and higher fat storage continues beyond puberty [11]. Westernization and nutrition transition have occurred at diferent rates in Arab countries [12, 13]. he movement toward Westernization has had a negative efect on health by promoting obesity [14] while thinness as a beauty standard is being promoted in the media [15]. Children are not resistant to media inluences and girls, in particular, were observed to have body dissatisfaction as young as six years old [16– 18]. Research suggests that girls’ body image dissatisfaction, previously viewed as problems of adolescence, actually occurs long before puberty [19]. Although body dissatisfaction occurs in boys and girls who are overweight, it is more common in girls [20] and this can be seen later into adulthood where the prevalence of body image dissatisfaction is higher in women than in men in developing countries [21]. Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Pediatrics Volume 2016, Article ID 1092819, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/1092819