Body Image
Body Image
Looking for, and Liking, the Real You
As you and your husband sit down for a romantic dinner at an elegant restaurant, you catch him checking out the pretty young cocktail waitress.
"You think I'm fat!" you blurt out.
"What? You're five-foot-three and 115 pounds. You look fine," he says.
" 'Fine' really means you think I'm just okay," you say. "The truth is," you think to yourself, "you probably think that my breasts are sagging, my hips are too big, my legs are flabby, my face is wrinkling and I'm turning into my mother."
No, he probably doesn't think that. But, unfortunately, you do, and no matter how many people tell you how good you look, you just don't believe them. Even now when you look in the mirror, you can see changes looming and wonder how long before your youth vanishes completely.
"Body image has a total impact on how we feel about aging," says Mary Huntington Lehner, clinical director of the Rocky Mountain Treatment Center in Great Falls, Montana. "There's a direct connection between your self-esteem and your body image. The better your self-esteem, the better you'll feel about what is happening to your body as you journey through life."
But even if you have terrific self-esteem, fighting an ongoing battle against gray hair, crow's-feet and extra pounds on the hips and thighs in a society that worships youth and thinness can be demoralizing and make you feel over the hill before your time, says Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., a Cincinnati psychologist in private practice who specializes in body image problems and eating disorders.
Model Behavior
From the little old ladies in the TV commercial who are miraculously transformed into young sex vixens after drinking beer to magazine covers that proclaim "Perfect Breasts: Yours Can Stack Up," women are bombarded with the message that if you're not tall, thin, young and perfect, you're not worth much, psychologists say.
"In the eyes of society, when you're 20, you're hot; when you're 40, you're not; and when you're 60, you're shot," says Stanley Teitelbaum, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City.
That not-so-subtle vision is reflected in the ages and sizes of models. Female models have steadily become younger, thinner and taller in the past 50 years. A generation ago, a model weighed only 8 percent less than the average woman. Today, a model weighs 23 percent less. For perspective, consider that only 5 percent of women can achieve the same weight and proportions of today's models without dieting.
"That girl in that stunning dress on the cover of the women's magazine is probably 16 or 17 years old, and most of her flaws have been airbrushed out of the picture," says Debbie Then, Ph.D., a social psychologist in Stanford, California, who studies the effects of media on body image and conducts seminars on the topic. "Then when the middle-aged woman in the grocery store checkout line sees that magazine on the rack, she's going to feel horrible about herself because she doesn't look that way."
Although a few models are bigger these days, Dr. Then says that the message to women remains the same. "The majority of women older than 25 wear a size 12 or larger," she says. "So when the fashion industry starts calling a size 10 a larger-size model, that tells most women that they're overweight, and their self-esteem plummets."
Even the clothing store mannequins project an unreal image to the point that the average American woman would have to lose 30 percent of her body weight to have similar proportions, Dr. Then says.
What Magazines Are Really Telling Us
Women's magazines love perfection. They tell us we can have perfect hair, perfect lips, perfect legs, perfect sex. They show us perfect models wearing perfect clothing and perfect makeup. So how does all this perfection make us feel? Perfectly rotten, says Debbie Then, Ph.D., a social psychologist in Stanford, California, who studies the effects of media on body image and conducts seminars on the topic. "Most women who look at those magazines know that they don't look like the models and never will," Dr. Then says. "Yet if you're constantly bombarded with those images, you might begin to consider yourself unattractive when in fact you're actually very good-looking." In a small study, Dr. Then asked 75 women how they felt after reading their favorite women's magazines. Some said they were motivated to improve their appearance, but nearly 70 percent said the images in the magazines lowered their self-esteem and made them feel worse about their looks. "I feel like every woman is at least 20 pounds lighter and four inches taller than I am," one woman wrote. "It really depresses me." "It is impossible to look like the models unless I have a $5 million wardrobe, a personal airbrusher and a makeup artist and I go on (a liquid diet) for ten years," said another. What to do? Well, a few women found what they considered the perfect solution: They stopped reading the magazines. |
Distorted Beliefs
These pressures on women to look thin, youthful and sexy are clearly having an effect. By most measures, a growing number of women believe looking young and attractive is important, but at the same time, more and more of us are displeased with our appearance.
In a 1989 survey of 1,000 women ages 18 to 60, Dr. Kearney-Cooke and Ruth Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, found that 68 percent of the women believed that being attractive is very important compared with only 32 percent of women in a similar survey conducted in 1973. In addition, 91 percent of the women in the 1989 survey said they wanted to change their bodies.
So what exactly do women dislike about their bodies? Twenty percent are dissatisfied with their faces, 45 percent dislike their muscle tone, 32 percent would like to change their breast or chest sizes, and about 40 percent are dissatisfied with their overall appearance, according to Judith Rodin, Ph.D., author of Bodytraps and professor of psychiatry and medicine at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
But the thing most women would change is their weight, because they believe men are attracted to thinner women. In a study of women who were asked to rate their body shapes against the body shape they believed was most attractive to men, women consistently rated themselves as far plumper than a man's ideal. However, their body shapes were actually closer to what men said they found attractive.
The desire to meet the model's ideal is so intense that nearly half of all average-weight women actually consider themselves overweight, according to surveys conducted by Thomas Cash, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Little wonder, then, that on any given day, 25 percent of all women are on diets, and up to one in seven of us has an eating disorder.
What Do You See in the Mirror?
What do you really think of your body, and what does it mean? To find out, take this quiz adapted from The Body Image Trap by Marion Crook. Answer these yes or no questions. A key to interpreting your answers follows. 1. Do you think thin women generally are more competent than overweight women? 2. Do you think thin women generally are more able to feel sexual pleasure and excitement than overweight women? 3. Are most of the women you admire slim? 4. Do you want to be thinner? 5. Do you wish parts of your body would disappear? 6. Do you think you would have more choice of sexual partners if you were thinner? 7. Do you think job opportunities would be greater if you were thinner? 8. Do you put off activities or beginning relationships until the time when you will be thinner? 9. Do you think overweight people do not deserve job promotions, sexual partners, admiration or respect? 10. Do you think most women can and should be slim? 11. Do you think most women do not try hard enough to be slim? 12. Do you consider yourself "bad" when you eat certain foods and "good" when you restrict your eating? 13. Do you consider yourself overweight? |
Caught in the Middle
Although almost every woman feels compelled to do something to maintain her looks, women in their thirties and forties may have the most difficulty doing it, says Susan Olson, Ph.D., director of psychological services at the Southwest Bariatric Nutrition Center in Tempe, Arizona.
"Women are in the middle of careers, raising children and possibly caring for their aging parents. So it's hard to find time to focus on themselves," Dr. Olson says. "When they do, they all of sudden realize they're getting older, and that's scary."
So it's probably not surprising that women are keeping plastic surgeons busy. People between the ages of 35 and 50 get about 66 percent of buttock lifts in this country, 58 percent of tummy tucks, 58 percent of collagen injections, 49 percent of liposuctions and 30 percent of face-lifts done each year, according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. Of 394,911 cosmetic surgery procedures that the organization logged in 1992, 343,965--or 87 percent--were done on women.
Seeking Function over Form
Of course, good looks don't guarantee that you will have a good body image or that you will age more gracefully than others. "The more attractive a person is, the harder aging is on her," Dr. Kearney-Cooke says. "People who are used to getting attention for their looks actually struggle more with aging than a person who is more plain-looking."
While body image can be a problem throughout the lives of many women--Dr. Kearney-Cooke has patients who at age 62 obsess about their appearance--worries about it usually level off for most women as they near their fifties.
"As women get older, they're more concerned about having healthy bodies than looking good," Dr. Kearney-Cooke says. "Instead of worrying if they can still fit into a size eight dress, they're more concerned that their backs will hurt tomorrow if they play golf today."
The ultimate reward for improving your body image at any age is that you'll feel more comfortable with yourself, and as a result, more people will want to be around you. "A good body image can definitely make you feel younger," Dr. Then says. "The more positive you are, the more outgoing you'll be. And that's important, because it's been shown that people who have more friends and acquaintances are healthier."
Here are some tips to help you feel better about your body.
Take an inside look. "You aren't your body. You just happen to be in your body," Dr. Olson says. "Try not to look at yourself as just a physical being, because that's going to pass." Find other reasons for liking yourself, such as a solid career or a good sense of humor.
Find a heroine. "I used to browse through magazines looking for pictures of women who had features similar to mine," Dr. Olson says. "They weren't perfect, but here they were in these magazines, and that made me feel better about myself." Find a picture of a woman you admire, cut it out, and put it on your mirror for inspiration.
Give yourself a hug. Dr. Olson suggests that each time you look in a mirror, say to yourself "I love you; I think you're absolutely beautiful." "That affirmation may seem ridiculous, but it's important, because you're not going to believe those words coming from anyone else until you believe them from yourself," she says.
Look back. Find a favorite picture of yourself from each decade of your life. "Looking at those pictures will help you realize that you were a better-looking person than you may have thought you were at the time," says Ann Meissner, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in St. Paul, Minnesota. "It will also make you think twice about how accurate your judgments are about yourself now."
Look ahead. Conjure up an image of yourself 5, 10 or 20 years from now. How do you look? How does it feel? Keep doing it until you find an image of yourself that feels comfortable, says Rita Freedman, Ph.D., author of Bodylove. "Look for role models whom you admire and think are attractive even though they are older and grayer. Put pictures of those people on your refrigerator, and use those images as something to look forward to and grow into."
Be a comparison shopper. "When you go to a shopping mall or beach, specifically watch the women there. Chances are most of them aren't going to look like fashion models, and you'll end up feeling better about yourself," Dr. Then says.
Take note. "Each day, write a note to a part of your body that you like and a part that you don't like," Dr. Meissner suggests. "For example, you might write 'Hips, I may not love you, but you're a part of me and along for the ride.' If you like your eyes, you might write 'Thanks, eyes. I really value you, because you sparkle and show that I'm alive.' "
Sweat it out. Regular exercise such as walking, bicycling, swimming or weight training can help you stay fit--and improve your body image--when you do it for at least 20 minutes a day, three times a week, says Mark Leary, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Please yourself first. If you do decide to make changes in your body, do it for yourself; you'll enjoy it more. "As we get older, we cling to this idea that your physique has to look like it did when you were 22. In fact, your friends and family probably don't care if you have the body of a 22-year-old. They just want you to have a decent 40-year-old body," Dr. Leary says.
Try some soul food. If you're working on changing your appearance, commit yourself to two other goals that aren't related to your body, Dr. Kearney-Cooke says. So if you're trying to lose ten pounds, for example, also take a flower-arranging class or start keeping a journal--or something. "It helps you see yourself as a whole person," she says.
Dress for success. "Appearance does count at any age, but you don't have to obsess about it. Just make the most of what you do have," Dr. Then says. "For health reasons, exercise, eat a balanced diet, maintain a weight that is right for your proportions, and practice good grooming. Wear clothes, makeup and accessories that complement your figure, but realize that you don't have to look like a cover girl to have a happy, successful life. Try to be the best possible version of yourself."
