Religiosity and Body Image: a comparison between Catholics, Muslims and Atheists in Italy

The goal of this research is to study the relationship between religiosity, self-esteem, body image (appearance, fitness, health, satisfaction) and look modesty in 3 Italian religious groups. The instruments used are the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire and the Modesty of Clothing Scale. All instruments were previously used with samples Catholics (or Christians) and Islamic. The sample consists of 300 people (mainly women) of mean age 30 years, 135 Catholics, 61 Muslims (the Islamists thanks to the association GMI, Young Muslims of Italy), 81 atheists / agnostics and 23 belonging to different religious groups. The only variables statistically significant are: religiosity (higher for Muslims), modesty of clothing (lower for Muslims), assessment of their health (higher for Muslims) and behavioral health (physical activity, drinking and smoking; higher for Muslims). There are no correlations between religiosity and self-esteem or perception of the body, while there are positive correlation with modesty (r=.432) and healthy behaviors (r=.289). Considering the groups, among Catholics religiosity correlates negatively with Appearance Orientation (r=-. 211) and preoccupation with Overweight (r=-.247); between Muslims instead correlates positively with Appearance Orientation (r=.307), Health Orientation (r=.445).