Body Image Research Paper

Body Image

Currently there is a major concern in the United States with body image and the effect that it has on lives. Body image is how someone sees themselves and how they think others see them as well. Body image and self esteem are closely connected and can easily intertwine with each other. Negative body image is not caused by one factor alone, but many factors contribute to the negativity one may feel about his or her body. Many experts have discovered that the media and other various things can play a very significant role in peoples’ negative body image. It’s been proven that negative body image has led to many women turning to chronic dieting and eating disorders in hopes to improve their body image. These behaviors may lead into multiple and serious problems in the future for a lot of people that can even make negative body image worse than before. Many books and websites have been created to help one improve body image and to teach one the importance of maintaining good, positive body image. Body image is how one sees herself or himself and many different factors can contribute to how people feel about their bodies. There are many ways to help improve body image and the effects that it has on lives.

What is Body Image?

Body image is how a person sees themselves. It is also how a person thinks that others see them as well. The exact definition of body image is, “a subjective picture of one's own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others” (Webster). Therefore, body image is not just formed from looking in the mirror, but it is learned by seeing others reactions. When humans are born, it is assumed that they can see themselves accurately. Young children can see their bodies accurately as well. While people are growing up, the influences of the world teach them what is ‘pretty’ and what is ‘ugly’. The things that are taught in the world eventually change the way that one sees himself or herself. Over time different factors affect how people feel about their bodies. If one does not meet the standards of beauty, most likely, his or her body image will be affected. They will begin to see their bodies differently because of how they are told to look. They literally start to see themselves inaccurately. When people see their bodies inaccurately and negatively, it is called negative body image. When a person sees themselves accurately and feels okay about his or her body, it is called positive body image.

What Causes Negative Body Image?

A great factor that can create negative body image is what others say about bodies. When young children feel indifferent about their bodies, and another person tells them how they ‘should’ feel, their perspectives change. It creates an image in ones mind and forms that image into a belief. “This image is often affected by family” (Facts). Because family and parents are so influential in lives, almost everything that they say will have an affect on someone and the way they feel. These small things can have long-term effects on young children.

Not only family and others comments can affect body image, but the greatest factor and influence on body image is the media. In a recent survey it was said that 63% of women’s body image is influenced by others and the media. An article written on the NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) website says, “research is increasingly clear that media does indeed contribute and that exposure to and pressure exerted by media increase body dissatisfaction” (Media). This means that; more and more, the media is impacting body image all over the world. Even women that create this ideal image feel the influence of the corrupted media. Model, Nancy Berg, said “It’s scary living in a world when all you are is a face” (Maine 124). A model herself admitted that it is “scary” to live in this world. The media can affect anyone. Even adolescents, “8 to 18 year olds”, are exposed to media, in one form or another, every single day (YouTube). This means that at the most, eight year old girls are beginning to develop a negative body image. At eight, little girls are looking up to fake images to base their own beauty and self-worth upon.

These little girls not only are comparing themselves to these fake media presentations, but also to their mothers. While growing up, a child’s biggest role model is his or her parents. Young children learn everything they do from their moms and dads. These kids learn from seeing, and are affected by everything that they see. If a girl’s mother is on a diet, and constantly engaging in dieting behaviors, that girl will notice, remember, and eventually engage in those same behaviors:

“On a diet, you can't eat." That is what one 5- year-old girl had to say in a study on girls' ideas about dieting. This and other research has shown that daughters are more likely to have ideas

about dieting when their mothers diet. Children pick up on comments about dieting concepts

that may seem harmless, such as limiting high-fat foods or eating less. Yet, as girls enter their

teen years, having ideas about dieting can lead to problems (Women’s)

The little things that are heard and seen while young will later affect people when they become older and can have negative life-long effects. These small things that may not seem to matter while children are young, will eventually become the big things. Children learn while very young how to compare things. Shapes, colors, textures, etc. are compared by babies to learn what they are. While growing, children continue to compare. At the beginning of lives comparison is a good thing, but as time goes on, it becomes more of a problem. The children grow and learn that they must become ‘better’ than one another and they begin to compete. The competing never comes to a stop. Even as adults, people compete in fitness, business, and finances. The competing later leads to the perfectionism that is a major effect of negative body image.

Effects of Negative Body Image

Some of the problems that come out of having negative body image are disordered eating, eating disorders, obsessive thoughts (perfectionism), and depression. Disordered eating, although most think is the same as an eating disorder, is very common among all men and women. Disordered eating is chronic dieting and excessive exercise. Different from disordered eating is an eating disorder. Eating disorders occur when an individual goes to extremes to lose weight. Along with chronic dieting and excessive exercise, there is binging, purging, fasting, and other various behaviors involved with eating disorders. Obsessive thoughts come along with negative body image as well. When people don’t like the way they look, they constantly think and worry about what others are thinking and seeing. Obsessive thinking is also when one repeatedly asks how they look, if people are looking at them, etc. Obsessive thinking can lead to OCD, which is very common in people with eating disorders. Many women become “preoccupied by incessant thoughts” that have to do with bodies, weight, and food (Fugen). These obsessive thoughts can lead to depression. It has been proven that body image is an “essential factor in the mechanisms of psychotic and neurotic depression”, and that depression and eating disorders can intertwine (Peto).

Improving Body Image

Although negative body image is an escalating problem, professionals have tips on how to help and improve it. Almost everyone thinks that in order to obtain positive body image, they must change their bodies. But, through psychology and therapeutic studies, it is known that “body image is not about how you look, but how you feel about the way you look” (Planned). The explanation is simple. To be at peace with one’s body they do not have to lose weight or receive surgery, they have to lose negative thoughts and accept themselves.

In an interview with Janna Dean, LCSW, she stated that in her opinion, “learning to identify” those negative thoughts and learning how to “change those thoughts”, is the best way to improve body image. She also mentioned that avoiding media can help to prevent those negative thoughts. Spending too much time in the pop culture world can greatly affect people’s perspectives. While looking through magazines and watching commercials, distorted images start to become real in the human brain. People literally start to think that those artificial images are legitimate. When people spend more time with other people, socializing and interacting, they will start to see the world in a different way. “Over 80% of Americans watch TV daily” (Media). Watching so much of the superficial media increases the “pressure from mass media” to become perfect (Media).

This pressure to become perfect also comes from the obsessive thinking mentioned before. To help improve the obsessive thoughts, one must, again, “change those thoughts”. Changing the thoughts has to start with recognizing them. Recognizing the negative thoughts is the hard part because it’s not the common thing to do. After recognizing those negative thoughts, the thoughts have to be reversed into positive thoughts. This process called “corrective thinking”, is taught in The Body Image Workbook by Thomas F. Cash. Cash taught  that “human change is gradual”, and the process can take awhile to get used to, but is very effective (Cash 135).

Another important part of learning to improve body image is learning what goes into body image. As said before, that body image is how a person sees himself/herself. In different cultures, beauty is defined differently. In different time periods, beauty has been defined differently. Beauty is never defined exactly the same.

In various cultures at various times, attractiveness has required decorative scars on the face, a

shaved head, tattoos fully covering the body, jewels placed in holes drilled in the teeth, large

disks inserted in the lips, stacked rings to elongate the neck, and the maiming of women’s feet

to make them petite. All these things were done, and most still are, in service of societal

standards of attractiveness (Cash 41)

The different standards don’t actually mean anything. In the United States, the standard for women is to be tall and skinny (for the most part). It’s been proven that the “exposure to media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to body image concerns for women” (Grabe). When people see things in the media, the definition of that beauty is changed. The media can control the new trends and can get people to look at themselves with the perspective that they think the media views them as. They believe themselves to be ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ because this culture taught them what to think. People’s perspectives change constantly and their emotions are consistent with that perspective. Perspective changes how one views his or her body. It changes how they feel about his or her body. It also changes his or her body image.

Outside vs Inside

Although using the phrase ‘body image’ may seem that all of these negative feelings come from the outside, a lot of what is seen comes from the inside as well. “When you are stressed, anxious or upset, your body tries to tell you that something isn’t right” (Connection), for example,  feeling negative about the body when the problem is on the inside of one’s mind. Not everything that people see is real. Frequently, the things that are seen (like bodies) are reflections of how someone feels on the inside. When a person is sad or depressed, and they look in the mirror, they will feel worse about himself or herself rather than when they are happy and positive. The mind will automatically put those feelings and those images in one’s head.

CONCLUSION

From each of the sources above and their information, it is understood that negative body image is very unhealthy to one’s life. There are many factors that when combined together can cause negative body image. The negative body image that is so common among women can lead to many other dangerous and unhealthy lifestyles. Because of all the chaos of negative body image, there are many experts and professionals that are working diligently to help people become comfortable in their bodies and increase positive body image.

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