Body image covers many aspects. One of them is the level of body dissatisfaction. The research on the connection between body satisfaction and psychosocial functioning provides disturbing conclusions, associating inter alia the incidence of eating disorders as well as anxiety and depression symptoms with increased body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction and related negative consequences appear not only among adults but also among children and teenagers. In the case of the latter group, researchers are seeking answers to the questions as to when body dissatisfaction first appears, what the differences are in girls and boys concerning their body dissatisfaction as well as what factors affect the body image. The aim of this paper is to analyze how body dissatisfaction is formed in the course of the development of children and teenagers and what role selected factors play in this process. The paper especially focuses on the influence of parents’ comments and the role of toys. Many researchers find these factors very important, while in Polish source literature they are rarely explored.
