Relationship among Body Image Shame, Assertiveness, Social Anxiety and Body Mass Index in Members of Tehran Gymnasiums

This study was conducted to investigate the effective psychological variables on body image shame and its aim was determining the relationship among body image shame, assertiveness, social anxiety and body mass index (BMI) in Tehran gyms members.
The research method was correlation and statistical population was all members of Tehran gymnasium and 200members of them were selected through cluster sampling. Research data was gathered by Thompson Body Image Guilt and Shame Scale (BIGSS), Self-Perception and Cannor Social Anxiety (SPIN) questionnaires and Body Mass Index (BMI) and analyzed by Structural equation modeling (SEM) and Pearson correlation.
The results showed that body image shame has positive significant correlation with social anxiety and negative significant correlation with assertiveness and also. Correlation between body mass index and assertiveness was positive significant in males and females but only in males correlation between body mass index and social anxiety was negative significant. Model result showed that the assertiveness, social anxiety and body mass index can respectively predict 55, 28 and 24 of variance of males body shame image but 21%, 26% and 2% of females body shame image.
Result indicated that, in addition to physiological factors such as weight (BMI), psychological variables (e. g. assertiveness, social anxiety) could influence individual’s shame of body image.