Body image

Body image refers to a person's feelings of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body that may be forced by others or social media. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his book The Image and Appearance of the Human Body (1935). Human society has at all times placed great value on beauty of the human body, but a person's perception of their own body may not correspond to society's standards.

The concept of body image is used in numerous disciplines, including psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural and feminist studies. The term is also often used in the media. Across these disciplines and media there is no consensus definition.

A person's body image is thought to be, in part, a product of their personal experiences, personality, and various social and cultural forces. A person's sense of their own physical appearance, usually in relation to others or in relation to some cultural "ideal," can shape their body image. A person's perception of their appearance can be different from how others actually perceive them.

A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that a culture-wide sexualization of girls (and women) was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image.^[1] Similar findings associated with body image were found by an Australian government Senate Standing Committee report on the sexualization of children in the media.^[2] However, other scholars have expressed concern that these claims are not based on solid data.^[3]

Throughout history it has been extremely difficult for people to live up to the standards of society and what they believe the ideal body is. There are many factors that lead to a person’s body image, some of these include: family dynamics, biological predispositions (e.g., depression and anxiety), and cultural expectations (e.g., media and politics). People are constantly told and shown the cosmetic appeal of weight loss and are warned about the risks of obesity; this is something that can lead to a change in a person’s body image.^[4]

Body image can have a wide range of psychological effects and physical effects. According to Dr. Aric Sigman, a British biologist, some women who see underweight women will have an immediate change in brain chemistry which diminishes self-esteem and can increase self-loathing.^[5] Commentators note that people who have a low body image will try to alter their bodies in some way, such as by dieting or undergoing cosmetic surgery.

Some girls and young women compare themselves to models in ads, in terms of their physical attractiveness.^[6] Many commentators ^[who?] regard the emphasis in the media and in the fashion industry on thinness and on an ideal female body shape and size as being psychologically detrimental to the well-being of many young women, and on their self-image which also gives rise to excessive dieting and/or exercise.

Not only are stars appearing thin and fit, but also youthful and flawless. Over the past few decades, plastic surgeries have increased and common procedures such as breast augmentation and rhinoplasty had increased by more than 700% from 1992 to 2004.^[7] Media plays its role in promoting these cosmetic medical treatments through advertisements in magazines and on billboards, typically using beautiful women in a state of happiness. The media’s impact is even more negatively impacting society because plastic surgery’s demographic is changing as well. More specifically, patients are getting younger. In 2002, almost 225,000 adolescents underwent plastic surgery procedures, both for either cosmetic procedures and for functionality purposes.^[7]

A study by Garner and Garfinkel demonstrated that those in professions where there is a particular social pressure to be thin (such as models and dancers) were much more likely to develop anorexia during their career,^[8] and further research suggests that those with anorexia have much higher contact with cultural sources that promote weight-loss.^[9] The Israeli Parliament recently passed a law prohibiting clinically underweight female or male models from appearing in advertisements and in fashion shows. Under the new legislation, models of either gender must have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 18.5 kg/m2 to be able to work in the industry, and they also need proof that a physician certifies that they are not underweight. In a further step, any artificial enhancements of images to make a person look thinner must be clearly stated right on the image.^[10]

However, other researchers have contested the claims of the media effects paradigm. An article by Christopher Ferguson, Benjamin Winegard, and Bo Winegard, for example, argues that peer effects are much more likely to cause body dissatisfaction than media effects, and that media effects have been overemphasized.^[3] It also argues that one must be careful about making the leap from arguing that certain environmental conditions might cause body dissatisfaction to the claim that those conditions can cause diagnosable eating disorders.

French child psychoanalyst Francoise Dolto developed a theory of the unconscious body image.^[11] Negative perceptions by a person regarding their body, such as a perception that they are fat, can in some cases lead to mental disorders, though there can be a variety of different reasons why these disorders can occur. Social Media has affected our society in multiple ways when referring to body image. Society promotes us human beings to look a certain way such as skinny,muscular, and beautiful. However, the pressure put on individuals can lead to disorders such as anxiety, depression and eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa.

A community cohort study was conducted in Navarra, Spain. A region-wide representative sample of 2862 girls who were 12 to 21 years of age completed the Eating Attitudes Test (40-item version) and other questionnaires in 1997.Ninety new cases of eating disorders according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria were identified during the follow-up.The results support the role of mass media influences and parental marital status in the onset of eating disorders. The habit of eating alone should be considered as a warning sign of eating disorders. ^{[citation needed]}

The negative influence of the media's promotion of often unrealistic and concretely unattainable images of beauty has, at least in more recent times, been noted and criticized. Films and campaigns have been put in place to dismantle the pressure and show the ugly truth behind media. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, the documentary called Miss Representation along the documentary America the Beautiful all address the damage done to citizens of both by sexes by the media's promotion of materially impossible criteria of physical attractiveness.

There has recently been a debate within the media industry focusing on the potentially negative impact size zero models can have on young people's body image. It has been suggested that size zero models be banned from cat walks, with many celebrities being targeted by the media due to their often drastic weight loss and slender frames; for example, Nicole Richie and British Super Model Kate Moss.Physical appearance comparison processes appear to play a critical role in the link between fashion media exposure and body image dissatisfaction. And it appears that upwards physical appearance comparisons against idealised images leads to greater dissatisfaction, but downward comparisons, for example against obese people, are associated with better body image satisfaction.^[12]

Feminist women were studied during a study done by Lisa R. Rubin, Carol J. Nemeroff and Nancy Felipe Russo at Arizona State University on body consciousness. The following quote describes how feminism seems to be a safety net for women in regards to the media. "Feminism appears to be a life-raft in the sea of media imagery. Specifically, feminist perspectives celebrate diversity among women, including body size diversity."^[13] An example of this is the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. In 2006, Dove launched the Real Beauty Campaign^[14] which promotes the Dove Self-Esteem Fund with the award winning advertisement, Evolution. The following link sends you to YouTube and shows the advertisement. The advertisement shows the many levels of deception that take place while photo editing that could be beneficial for individuals to watch. The clip encourages viewers to realize the ugly truth of photo editing. Viewers will watch the work put into beauty regiments before the shoot for the model but Evolution also shows how many edits and changes are made to create the perfect images that are plastered throughout media.

Body image is often measured by asking the subject to rate their current and ideal body shape using a series of depictions. The difference between these two values is the measure of body dissatisfaction. There are many negative effects that body dissatisfaction can have these include: that some research suggests a link between body dissatisfaction in girls and smoking. Also having this body dissatisfaction can affect a girl’s comfort with her sexuality when she’s older and may lead them to consider cosmetic surgery.^[15]

Monteath and McCabe found that 44% of women express negative feelings about both individual body parts and their bodies as a whole.^[16] Psychology Today found that 56% of the women and about 40% of the men who responded to their survey in 1997 were dissatisfied with their overall appearance.^[17] American youth (37.7% of males and 51% of females) express dissatisfaction with their bodies.^[18]

In America, the dieting industry earns roughly 40 billion dollars per year. A Harvard study (Fat Talk, Harvard University Press) published in 2000 revealed that 86% of teenage girls are on a diet or believe they should be on one. Dieting has become a very common thing to not only teenage girls but even younger children as well. The National Eating Disorders Association has found out that 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls actually feel better about themselves when they are on a diet.^[19]

“Currently over 40 instruments for the measurement of body image exist (Thompson, Altabe, Johnson, & Stormer, 1994)”. All of these instruments can be put into three categories: figure preferences, video projection techniques, and questionnaires. Because there are so many ways to measure body image, it makes it difficult to draw meaningful research generalizations. Many factors have to be taken into account when measuring body image, including gender, ethnicity, culture, and age.^[20]

In figure preferences the use of silhouettes is the most common used method. There are many issues with this method though; for one, the drawings are not realistic looking and were originally portrayed as adults so it made them unsuitable for children.^[20] Silhouettes are used to show to the subject and have them react to the different body types.

In one study participants were shown a series of images flashing before them; each image was a picture of them but either increased weight or decreased weight. They were measured in self-report by responding to the pictures. Also they were measured by startle-based measures and testing their eyeblink response. “The startle response is a complex set of physiological changes that occur in response to unexpected and intense stimulus (Grillon & Baas, 2003).” These measurements can be useful because “Objective, psychophysiological measures, like the affect modulated startle eyeblink response, are less subject to reporting bias (Grillon & Baas, 2003).” ^[21]

Questionnaires are another very commonly used method of measurement. One example of a questionnaire is BASS; it is a 9-item subscale of the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire. It uses a rating scale from −2 to +2 and assesses eight body areas and attributes and overall appearance (face, hair, lower torso, mid-torso, upper torso, muscle tone, height, and weight) (Giovannelli, Cash, Henson, & Engel, 2012). Questionnaires can have confounding variable though. For instance, “Acquiescent response style (ARS), or the tendency to agree with items on a survey, is more common among individuals from Asian and African cultures (Chen, Lee, & Stevenson, 1995; Dolnicar & Grun, 2007; Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008)”.^[22]

Gender differences related to body image are increasingly prevalent between men and women. Throughout all stages of life, women have more body dissatisfaction than men. Although dissatisfaction is more common in women, men are becoming more negatively affected than women.^[23] In a longitudinal study that assessed body image across time and age between men and women, men placed greater significance on their physical appearance than women, even though women report body image dissatisfaction more often. Adolescence is where this difference is most notable. One reason for this is because males are being targeted in the media more heavily today. Historically, and for a much longer period of time, the media has immoderately targeted females, which may explain why they are becoming less sensitized to the effects.^[24] This information suggests that appearance pressure and concerns are continuing to affect both men and women in western culture.

Men's body image is a topic of increasing interest in both academic articles and in the popular press. Current research indicates many men wish to become more muscular than they currently perceive themselves to be, often desiring up to 26 pounds of additional muscle mass. According to the study, western men desire muscle mass over that of Asian men by as much as 30 pounds.^[25] The desire for additional muscle has been linked to many men's concepts about masculinity. A variety of research has indicated a relationship between men's endorsement of traditionally masculine ideas and characteristics, and their desire for additional muscle.^[26] Some research has suggested this relationship between muscle and masculinity may begin early in life, as boys' action figures are often depicted as super-muscular, often beyond the actual limits of human physiology.^{[27][specify]}

In general, research shows that body image in regards to appearance becomes less of a stress for women as they age. Studies show a decline in dissatisfaction of body image in college-aged women as they progress from the first semester of college to subsequent semesters. Their appearance rating of themselves tends to increase, while males’ do not significantly change and often become worse. This suggests that the early years of college serve as a period for body image development, which can later affect the mental and physical well being of an individual.^[28] Studies have found that females tend to think more about their body shape and endorse thinner figures than men even into old age.^[29] When female undergraduates were exposed to depictions of thin women their body satisfaction decreased, but rose when exposed to larger models.^[30][31] In addition, many women engage in fat talk (speaking negatively about the weight-related size/shape of one's body), a behavior that has been associated with weight dissatisfaction, body surveillance, and body shame.^[32] In addition, women who overhear others using fat talk may also experience an increase in body dissatisfaction and guilt.^[33] As a result, women may experience concerns related to body image in a number of different ways and from a variety of sources.

As men and women reach older age, body image takes on a different meaning. Research studies show that the importance attached to physical appearance decreases with age.^[28][34] Physical appearance remains important later in life, but the functional aspects of the body take precedence over contentment with appearance.^[24] Women are reported to benefit from the ageing process, becoming more satisfied with their images, while men begin to develop more insecurities and issues. Women reach a certain stage where they are no longer subject to the social pressures that heavily emphasize the importance of appearance. Men from the same studies are reported as becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their physical appearance as they age. Men are also less likely to implement appearance-enhancing activities into their daily lives.

The older women become the more satisfied with their body image they are likely to become because of the relief of stress from societal pressures.^[35] The older men become, the more dissatisfied they are likely to become due to increased physical and perceived incompetency. Since there are significant differences between men and women across all ages, gender serves as a better predictor of body dissatisfaction and sociocultural perceived influences than age.^[34]

The desire to lose weight is highly correlated with poor body image, with more women than men wanting to lose weight. Kashubeck-West et al. reported that when considering only men and women who desire to lose weight, sex differences in body image disappear.^[36]

In her article "The Beauty Myth," Naomi Wolf reported that "thirty-three thousand women told American researchers they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal." Through repeated images of excessively thin women in media, advertisement, and modeling, thinness has become associated with not only beauty, but happiness and success. As Charisse Goodman put it in her article, "One Picture is Worth a Thousand Diets," advertisements have changed society's ideas of beauty and ugliness: "Indeed to judge by the phrasing of the ads, 'slender' and ‘attractive' are one word, not two in the same fashion as 'fat' and 'ugly.'" This idea of beauty has become drastically more narrow and unachievable, putting increased pressure on people looking to satisfy society's standards.

Research by Martin and Xavier (2010) shows that people feel more pressure from society to be thin after viewing ads featuring a slim model. Ads featuring a larger sized model resulted in less pressure to be thin. People also felt their actual body size was larger after viewing a slim model as compared to a larger model^[37]

Many, like journalist Marisa Meltzer, have argued this contemporary standard of beauty to be described as anorexic thinness, an unhealthy idea that is not representative of a natural human body: "Never before has the ‘perfect’ body been at such odds with our true size."^[38]

These figures do not, however, distinguish between people at a low or healthy weight and those who are in fact overweight: between those whose self-perception as overweight is incorrect and those whose perception of overweight is correct. Post-1997 studies^[39] indicate that around 64% of American adults are overweight, such that if the 56%/40% female/male dissatisfaction rates in the Psychology Today study have held steady since its release, those dissatisfaction rates are if anything disproportionately low: although some individuals continue to believe themselves to be overweight when they are not, those persons are now outnumbered by persons who might be expected to be dissatisfied with their body but are not.

In turn, although social pressure to lose weight has adverse effects on some individuals who do not need to lose weight, those adverse effects are outweighed by that social pressure's positive effect on the overall population, without which the recent increases in obesity and associated health and social problems (described in both popular and academic parlance as an "obesity epidemic")^[40][41] would be even more severe than they already are.^[42]

Miss Representation^[43] is a documentary exploring and displaying the role that mainstream media plays in society today with regards to women. Prominent women in today's society were featured in discussing how the media has impacted their life along with their views on how the media is impacting the lives of people from an early age. These media messages have a severe impact on how individuals carry themselves along with what aspects bog them down like insecurities with body image. This film encourages viewers to start to see beyond the message and not compare themselves to these picture perfect computer-generated images.

The 2007 documentary America the Beautiful explores how the fashion and beauty industries are contributing to the problems that individuals feel regarding body image due to their beauty obsession. The film discusses a wide range of topics like plastic surgery, dieting, eating disorders, the modeling industry along with the fashion industry and much more. Young middle-school aged girls were portrayed in the beginning of the film and asked if they found themselves beautiful. The girls who are around the ages of 13 had decided that they were not beautiful. In today's society, people are starting to see themselves as ugly at an earlier age than ever before. As individuals who identify as ugly increase, the number of body image issues also increase.

In a study done at Old Dominion University, Thomas F. Cash, Julie R. Ancis and Melissa D. Strachan studied college women and their attitudes toward gender, feminist identity and body image. "Relative to men, women are considerably more psychologically invested in their appearance. Moreover, women's poor evaluations of and stronger investments in their looks potentiate greater body-image dysphoria in women's daily lives."^[44] A contributing factor in this scenario that leads women to greater objectify of their bodies are the images that are seen throughout media. Women who are portrayed throughout media posses unattainable beauty. "Furthermore, the social construct of femininity is partially tied to perceived beauty, as evinced by the 'what is beautiful sex-typed' stereotype."^[44] These internalized ideals along with the pursuit for this unattainable beauty of one's body image can lead to body dysmorphic disorder, body objectification, eating disorders, anxiety, depression and other related psychological difficulties.

In the same study from Arizona State University, it was said that the idea of beauty is generated from these media messages. "Cultural messages about beauty (i.e what it is, how it should be cultivated, and how it will be rewarded) are often implicitly conveyed through media representations of women."^[13] The 2007 documentary America the Beautiful explores the role of the fashion and beauty in contributing to the problems that individuals feel regarding body image due to their beauty obsession. The film discusses a wide range of topics like plastic surgery, dieting, eating disorders modeling industry and much more.

In the study from Old Dominion University, the authors state the importance of research in this area. "Given the centrality of body image in clinical and subclincial eating disturbances that are so prevalent among women, research on gender and body image has substantial importance." ^[44] Even though there is research being done, there is still much more work to be done to help individuals who struggle with their body image.

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