For the past three decades, women and, increasingly, men have been
preoccupied with how they look. But the intense scrutiny hasn't
necessarily helped us see ourselves any more clearly. While as
individuals we are growing heavier, our body preferences are growing
thinner. And thinness is depicted everywhere as crucial to personal
happiness. Despite the concerns of feminists and other observers, body
image issues seem to be only growing in importance.
When most people think of body image, they think about aspects of
physical appearance, attractiveness, and beauty. But body image is so
much more. It's our mental representation of ourselves; it's what allows
us to contemplate ourselves. Body image isn't simply influenced by
feelings, and it actively influences much of our behavior, self-esteem,
and psychopathology. Our body perceptions, feelings, and beliefs govern
our life plan -- who we meet, who we marry, the nature of our interactions,
our day-to-day comfort level. Indeed, our body is our personal billboard,
providing others with first -- and sometimes only -- impressions.
With that in mind, Psychology Today decided it was time for another
detailed reading of the state of body image. The landmark PT national
surveys of 1972 and 1985 are among the most widely cited on the subject.
We wanted to try to understand the growing gulf between actual and
preferred shapes -- and to develop the very revealing picture that can be
seen only by tracking changes over time. We asked David Garner, Ph.D., to
bring his vast expertise to our project. Garner, the director of the
Toledo Center for Eating Disorders, is also an adjunct professor of
psychology at Bowling Green State University and of women's studies at
the University of Toledo. He has been researching and treating eating
disorders for 20 years, heading one of the earliest studies linking them
to changes in cultural expectations for thinness. From measurements of
Playboy centerfold models and Miss America contestants, he documented
that these "model women" had become significantly thinner from 1959 to
1979 and that advertising for weight-loss diets had grown
correspondingly. A follow-up study showed the trend continuing through
the late 1980s.
Garner, along with Cincinnati psychotherapist Ann Keamey Cooke,
Ph.D., and editor at large Hara Estroff Marano, crafted five pages worth
of questions and in our March/April 1996 issue we asked you how you see,
feel, and are influenced by your bodies. The response was phenomenal:
about 4,500 people returned questionnaires from every state, not to
mention Europe, Israel, Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South
Africa, New Zealand, Peru, Australia, Japan, and China. Ten months after
the questionnaire hit the newsstands, responses are still coming in. Many
of you supplemented your surveys with pages pouring out heart and soul.
And though you could reply with complete anonymity, a whopping two-thirds
chose to include names, addresses, and phone numbers. Some of you even
included pictures!
Our statistical analyses were conducted on the first 4,000
responses -- 3,452 women and 548 men (86 percent women, 14 percent men) -- a
much wider gender split than in our readership as a whole, which is 70
percent women and 30 percent men. (See "Who Responded to the Survey,"
below.) The predominantly female response clearly says something about
the stake women have in this topic. Participants were primarily
Caucasian, college-educated, in their early to mid thirties,
middle-income, and heterosexual. Women who responded range in age from 13
to 90 and weigh between 77 and 365 pounds (89 women weigh 100 pounds or
less; 82 women weigh more than 250 pounds). Men range in age from 14 to
82 and weigh between 115 and 350 pounds. You describe yourselves as
relationship-oriented, pro-choice, intellectual, politically liberal, and
spiritual. At the top of your worry list are financial matters and
romantic relationships. A significant segment described health problems
that vary from relatively minor ailments to cancer and AIDS.
The 1997 Psychology Today Body Image Survey shows there's more
discontent with the shape of our bodies than ever before. Okay, there are
some things we like about our appearance: height, hair, face, feet, and
the size of our sex organs generate the most approval. In the span
between face and feet, our primary sex organs are a small oasis of favor
amidst a wasteland of waist land. Apparently there's little pressure to
change the things that we can't see or change. Of course, these areas
tend not to be repositories for the accumulation of fat, that object of
abhorrence. In contrast, the negative focus remains on our visible
attributes, the ones that display fat -- the ones that can presumably be
controlled or corrected with enough self-discipline.
Fifty-six percent of women say they are dissatisfied with their
overall appearance. Their self-disparagement is specifically directed
toward their abdomens (71 percent), body weight (66 percent), hips (60
percent), and muscle tone (58 percent). Men show escalating
dissatisfaction with their abdomens (63 percent), weight (52 percent),
muscle tone (45 percent), overall appearance (43 percent), and chest (38
percent).
