Body image is a person’s thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their body.
The body image concept is noted in several disciplines: neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural and feminist studies.
No single definition exists, but it consists of the ways people view themselves; their memories, experiences, assumptions, and comparisons about their appearances; and their overall attitudes towards their respective heights, shapes, and weights.
Body image is shaped by prevalent social and cultural ideals.
Body image can be negative, positive or neutral in character.
An individual with a negative body image may feel self-conscious or ashamed and may feel that others are more attractive.
People of different ages are affected emotionally and mentally by the appearance and body size/shape ideals set by the society they live in.
These ideals that are created and constantly being changed by society can contribute in part to body shaming.
Body shaming is the act of humiliating an individual by mocking or making critical comments about a person’s physiological appearance.
Body shaming results In low self-esteem, and sufferers typically fixate on altering their physical appearances to appease the perceived standards.
Body shaming behavior creates body dissatisfaction and higher risks of eating disorders, isolation, and mental illnesses in the long term.
In eating disorders, a negative body image may also lead to body image disturbance, wirth altered perceptions of the whole one’s body.
Body dissatisfaction is seen in body dysmorphic disorder, an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
It is defined by concerns about some specific aspect of one’s body: face, skin or hair, which is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix.
Often, people who have a low body image will try to alter their bodies in some way: such as by dieting or by undergoing cosmetic surgery.
A positive body image consists of perceiving, celebrating and appreciating one’s body, and understanding that one’s appearance does not reflect one’s character or worth.
Factors that contribute to a person’s body image: family dynamics, mental illness, biological predispositions and environmental causes for obesity or malnutrition, and cultural expectations.
People who are either underweight or overweight status can have a poor body image.
The culture-wide sexualization of girls and women was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image.
Similarly sexualization of children in the media reported similar findings associated with body image.
Desirable characteristics have always changed with the evolution of moral and cultural values and sensibilities throughout history.
Cultural icons have also influenced body image perception.
Social media in particular has reshaped the concept of a perfect body and presents inconsistent ideals for hair, body type, and skin tone.
Social currency for girls and women continues to be rooted in physical appearance.
Women are evaluated and oppressed by their appearances: including their ages, skin tones, or sizes.
Many advertisements promote insecurities to sell them solutions, and so may present retouched images, sexual objectification, and explicit messages that promote unrealistic images of beauty and undermine body image, particularly in female audiences.
Body dissatisfaction creates negative attitudes, a damaging mentality, and negative habits in young women.
The emphasis on an ideal female body shape and size is psychologically detrimental to young women, who may resort to grooming, dieting, and surgery in order to be happy.
The prevalence of eating disorder development among college females is especially high, with rates up to 24% among college students.
Body dissatisfaction in girls is associated with increased rate of smoking, decreased in comfort with sexuality when they’re older, which may lead them to consider cosmetic surgery.
The pressure on women and girls on the effects of culturally induced body insecurity is severe, with many indicating their lives would be better if they were not judged by their looks and body shape, as this leads to low self-esteem, eating disorders, mental health problems and depression.
Women that compare themselves to images in the media believe they are more overweight than they actually are, because media images are routinely subjected to computer manipulation techniques, such as airbrushing.
The resulting images present an unobtainable aesthetic perfection that has no biological basis.
Global eating disorder rates are gradually rising in adolescent girls:anorexia and bulimia
95% of individuals who suffer from an eating disorder are aged 12 to 26.
Anorexia is the third-most-common illness among teenagers.
Teenage girls are most prone receive negative messages and obsess about weight loss to obtain a thin appearance,’
Others argue that peer effects are much more likely to cause body dissatisfaction than media effects, and that media effects have been overemphasized.
When females are exposed to depictions of thin women their body satisfaction decreased; when they were exposed to larger models, it rises.
Many women engage in 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.
Women who overhear others using fat talk may also experience an increase in body dissatisfaction and guilt.
44% of women express negative feelings about both individual body parts and their bodies as a whole.
37.7% of young American males and 51% of young American females express dissatisfaction with their bodies.
The dieting industry earns roughly 40 billion dollars per year.
A Harvard study revealed that 86% of teenage girls are on a diet or believe they should be on one.
Even among very young children: 51% of 9- and 10-year-old girls feel better about themselves when they are on diets.
91% of women were mostly unhappy with their bodies, while 40% will consider cosmetic surgery to fix their flaws.
Media presentations idealizing a muscular physique have led to body dissatisfaction among young men.
As many as 45% of teenage boys may suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a mental illness whereby an individual compulsively focuses on self-perceived bodily flaws.
Men may suffer from muscle dysmorphia, pursuing their muscularity without ever becoming fully satisfied with their physiques.
18% of adolescent males are most worried about their weights and physiques, 29% frequently thought about their appearances, 50% recently complained about the way they looked, 25% of males report having been teased about their weight, while 33% specify social media as the source for self-consciousness.
The ideal male body is perceived to feature a narrow waist and hips, broad shoulders, a well-developed upper body, toned abs.
Teenage boys may participate in extreme workouts and weight training, and may abuse supplements and steroids to increase muscle mass.
1 out of 4 men suffer from eating disorders,[28] while 31% have admitted to purging or binge eating in the past.
Men often desire additional muscle mass.
Men who endorse traditional masculine ideas are more likely to desire additional muscle.
Men with lower, more feminine waist–hip ratios feel less comfortable and self-report lower body esteem and self-efficacy than men with higher, more masculine, WHRs.
Body dissatisfaction is more common in women, men are becoming increasingly negatively affected.
In a longitudinal study across time and age between men and women, men placed greater significance on their physical appearances than women, even though women reported body image dissatisfaction more often.
The difference was strongest among adolescents: the discrepancy is explained that women have already become accustomed and desensitized to media scrutiny.
The significance placed upon body image improved among women as they got older; men in comparison showed little variation in their attitude.
Relative to men, women are considerably more psychologically aware of their appearances.
Women’s greater concern over body image has a greater impact on their daily lives.
The importance attached to physical appearance decreases with age.
The desire to lose weight is highly correlated with poor body image.
Naomi Wolf reported that thirty-three thousand women told researchers they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal.
Repeated images of excessively thin women in media, advertisement, and modeling, thinness has become associated with not only beauty, but happiness and success.
Advertisements have changed society’s ideas of beauty and uglines.
Overweight children experience not only discrimination but overall body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, social isolation and depression.
The association of light skin with moral virtue dates back at least to the medieval era.
A lack of black women in the fashion industry contributes to body image issues among African-American women.
Black women generally have higher self-esteem than white or Asian women in America.
East Asian women are more satisfied with their bodies than white women.
East Asian men reported more body dissatisfaction than white males did.
Western men desire as much as 30 pounds more muscle mass than do Asian men.
Lesbian-identifying women reported less body dissatisfaction than did heterosexual women.
Heterosexual women were more likely to have internalized the thin ideal than lesbian and bisexual women.
It isvsuggested that lesbians who identified as more feminine were at greater risk of body dissatisfaction, while those who identified as more butch, were traditionally more satisfied with their bodies.
Qualitative research with non-heterosexual women found that female sexual/romantic partners were a source of both body confidence and concerns.
Non-heterosexual women women reported that while they compared their body size and shape to that of their partner, and could feel more self-conscious if their partner was slimmer than them, their attractions to women who did not conform to the narrow Western definition of beauty gave them confidence in their own appearance.
Gay men were more likely than straight men to have body image dissatisfaction, diet more, and were more fearful of becoming fat.
The sexual objectification of gay males and heterosexual females by men in general as a reason for increased numbers in these groups for eating disorders and stimulants addictions.
Fashion magazines are directed at females subtly promote thinness and diet practices, and teenagers heavily rely on them for beauty and fashion advice.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 90% of teenage girls felt a need to change their appearances, and that 81% of 10-year-olds were already afraid of being fat.
Media portrayal of images can prolong anorexia and bulimia in women and may even be a cause of it.
Ninety percent of 13- to 17-year-old Americans feel pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny, and that 65% believed that the bodies portrayed were too thin.
More than 60% habitually compared themselves to models.
71% of women and 67% of girls call on the media to do a better job portraying women of diverse physical appearance, age, race, shape and size.
67% of men now strongly believe that it is unacceptable for brands to use photo manipulation techniques to alter the body image of a model.
Fashion magazine industry has made efforts to include ‘real’ women, and to reduce or ban use of airbrushing tools to enhance images.
Some fashion brands and retailers adopt vanity sizing to intentionally raise a customer’s self-esteem while shopping: labeling clothes with smaller sizes than the actual cut.
Fashion models have experienced negative body image due to industry pressures: 69% reported that they were told to tone up, while 62% reported that their agencies had required them to lose weight or change their body shapes.
A majority of models had a BMI of 17.41, which qualifies as anorexia.
The average weight of an American model was recorded to be twenty-three percent less than that of an average American woman.
Models endure intensive exercise regimes, diets, fasts to maintain or lose weight. In addition, 17% have admitted to stimulant abuse, while another 8% frequently engaged in self-induced vomiting to induce weight loss.
Beauty standards are being shaped by social media, as users are constantly exposed to notifications, posts, and photos about the lives of others.
Factors measuring body image, include gender, ethnicity, culture, and age.