How negative body image affects you
»When people are dissatisfied with their bodies, it can have negative consequences for their health. They tend to have disturbed eating habits and often do a lot or very little sport,” Phillippa Diedrichs told the BBC. “Especially in adolescents, negative body image can be associated with substance abuse.”
Your love life can also suffer. Those who are insecure about their appearance are more afraid to go on a date, a British study showed in 2021. Conversely, people who are satisfied with their appearance have more confidence and live healthier lives. But can body positivity actually promote a healthy body image?
»Whoever manages to accept their body ultimately lives healthier than someone who constantly looks at themselves with disgust«(Claudia Luck-Sikorski, psychotherapist)
In 2019, psychologist Rachel Cohen from the University of Technology in Sydney and her team wanted to know what effect such images and messages have on young women. To do this, they submitted 20 Instagram posts to 200 adults between the ages of 18 and 30. One group was only shown photos of slim and fit models, such as Kendall Jenner or Gigi Hadid. The other group instead looked at posts from the body positivity community, in which women who don’t conform to the usual ideal of beauty proudly flaunt their bodies. Among them were, for example, images of the influencer Megan Jayne Crabbe, who shows her curves to encourage others. A third group was not presented with images of bodies at all, but of landscapes and animals. All participants completed a series of questionnaires before and after the event.
The result: The body positivity posts and the nature pictures lifted the mood of the women, while the model photos hit their mood. Those who had looked at posts by Megan Jayne Crabbe and Co. were also happier with their own body and appreciated it more – quite the opposite of those women who had looked at pictures of slim models.
A study by the Mainz psychotherapist Florian Hammerle and his colleagues also shows how great the influence of the media is. They compared the body image of more than 1000 young people from Germany and Colombia. While slim is considered beautiful in Western Europe, Latinas are allowed to be curvier. The women who appear in TV series and commercials in Colombia are therefore often less thin than in this country. And the more realistic ideal of beauty was also reflected in body image: On average, the Colombian respondents had a more positive relationship to their own bodies than the Germans. For example, they were less ashamed to show him in the outdoor pool, as the comparison showed.
The results have not yet been published, but are consistent with other work on feelings of shame and dissatisfaction with one’s own body. More research is needed to clarify whether the more relaxed attitude is the result of the widespread ideal of beauty. But it could be a factor, Hammerle says.