Body Image

Body Image

Body image has been defined as "the picture of our own body which we form in our mind". It also involves our perception, sense of attractiveness, attitudes towards our bodies, emotions, and physical sensations of our bodies. It is dependent on mood, experiences and environment. Body image influences our behaviour, self esteem and self-respect. When we feel bad about our body, our mood plummets but when we feel good about ourselves and our body, then we have a good mood and a healthy body image. The formation of one's own body image is learnt and self-esteem is one factor that influences it. Significant others in our life such as family members and friends influence our ideas of ourselves and therefore have an effect on our self-esteem and body image by reinforcing some of our beliefs and attitudes towards ourselves and our bodies in general.

However, media also influences our body image as well as eating problems and identity formation. It is responsible for the development of body dissatisfaction, the tendency to diet and possibly the current proliferation of eating disorders. The main aim of the media is to promote either certain ideas or goods and it informs the public on what their preoccupations should be. The representation of an "ideal" woman's body produces different responses in women and makes them want to lose weight and attain that "ideal" and such a response leads to dietary restraint and binge eating, which is identified as a precipitating factor for eating disorders. So women set about losing weight and if they are successful and attain the ideal cultural standard (no matter what methods are used), they get compliments from others and feel satisfied and secure. This happens because that "ideal" shape is regarded as individual's worth.

Some studies showed that seeing fashion model photographs led to the reduction in "normal" women's self-esteem.

By presenting an ideal body type for women, the media encourages the young girls to attain it and promises social acceptance if that thin "ideal" is achieved, and as a result women use media images as a reference point to evaluate their own bodies! This causes dissatisfaction and anxiety in those women whose bodies do not match that ideal. Studies suggest that the media influences the development of eating disorders because of sociocultural factors that contribute to a general dissatisfaction with one's body, usually through the messages about the importance of being slim.

Nowadays, many women feel under the pressure of cultural expectations placed on them and some go to different lengths to meet those standards. Many women and men are not satisfied with their size and shape and describe how they wish they were thinner/taller or be more muscular.

Body dissatisfaction comes in many forms and can be defined in three ways.
People experience body dissatisfaction because of the distortion of their body size. Some stidies have asked subjects to adjust the horizontal dimensions on a video image of themselves and others asked anorexics to adjust the distance between two lights on a beam until they represented the width of either their hips, waist or shoulders. The research shows that people with eating disorders show greater perceptional distortion than people without eating disorders. However,a vast majority of women tend to overestimate their size and think that they are bigger than they really are.

Body dissatisfaction is also characterized by a discrepancy from the ideal. Researchers use body silhouettes of different sizes and ask the subject to determine the one which best reflects the way they look now and the one which they would actually like to look. Studies have been carried out using students of both sexes, bulimics, dieters, and ex-obese females and pre-adolescent and adolescent children but the conclusion drawn was always that most women and girls would like to be thinner than they are and most maes would like to stay either the sam size or be larger than they are now.

Body dissatisfaction is also experienced through the negative feelings and cognitions about the body. The research shows that eating disordered people show greater dissatisfaction with their bodies than people without eating disorders, dieters show greater dissatisfaction than non-dieters, and women show greater dissatisfaction with their bodies than men! Some researchers state that concerns about eating and body image are woven into woman's life from earliest adolescence.

However, slimness has been positively rated only recently in our culture. In earliest representations of women, fertility was the main considerationand the example of an ideal women was the "Venus von Willendorf" of a woman with large breasts, hips, thighs and buttocks. A new standard of beauty- thinness and pale skin- emerged with the Romantic movement. Gull,1874 mentions the descriptions of a new syndrome anorexia nervosa but at that time this syndrome was often confused with Simmonds disease, which is an endocrine disorder, and so thyroid extracts were used in treatment. In 1920, the fashion required women to hide curves and breasts because they were the symbols of femininity and fertility. At that time, the woman's social position was changing and she was competing with men and had more economic freedom. After a World War, breasts and curves became popular again and the symbol of that time was Marilyn Monroe with her size 16. However, that image began to decreased in size and subsequently weight and the ideal for today is a tall, thin woman with a boyish look- no breasts and hips.

For women, thinness has always held different meanings. There is a connection between fatness and fertility and in some East and Central African countries fatness is a sign of wealth and the ability to nurture and have children and in such countries eating disorders are rare because fatness is valued over slimness. However, ressearchers report that compulsive eating in Arab women is a symptom of depression and frustration as a result of concentrating too much on their families and leaving no time for cultural and political activities.

In Western countries, food is cheap and readily accessible, overconsumption occurs and therefore dieting is seen as luxury and something which is desirable to be done. There is also evidence that there is an increase in diet articles in the media.

As a result of body dissatisfaction, people want to control their food intake and start dieting despite awareness that the majority of diets fail. The success of the dieting industry depends on its customers' failure. Studies show that around 95% of those who have been on a diet and lost weight return to their initial weight and sometimes gain even more, within 3 years. Up to 90% of women have been on slimming diets, 20% of "normal" women go on binges once a month and 10% vomit and abuse laxatives to lose weight or as a compensatory behaviour for overeating.

The idea of control over the body is more stressed for women than for men in the media, so women are more likely to be affected by such messages and images and therefore strive for social acceptability and a particular "ideal". By striving for that "ideal" enables women to take control of their bodies, which maybe the easiest area of their lives that they can control and manage.

To sum up, the media's images and messages have an effect on self-esteem and body image of males and females but appear to be directed more on females than males.

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