Body Image Research Paper PDF

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Research Paper Laurel Nakanishi Fall 2018 UH Manoa English 100...

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Kelli Li Professor Nakanishi English 100 22 October 2018 Body Image Imagine a room filled with people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. In front of each person there is a full body mirror standing in front of them. Looking around, each one of them looks at themselves and the person next to them. They start to compare themselves to a stranger, someone they completely do not know. Many people do this on a daily basis with the influence of social media and peer pressure.. Sometimes they even do it without even realizing it. We compare ourselves to others intentionally and unintentionally as it is a natural instinct to do. What factors influence Americans' sense of body image? Body image in America is a concern. If you ask someone what body image is, their answer is most likely: how your body looks on the outside. “Body image, simply put, is how you feel about your body and how you feel in your body. Body image isn’t how you physically look; it’s how you feel about how you look” (Taylor & Wardy, 2014). What most people mistake about body image is that it does not pertain to how you look but instead it focuses on how you feel about your body. It is important to learn what people with a healthy body image do. According to The Body Image Workbook for Teens, p eople who have a healthy body image feel confident and comfortable with themselves, do not focus a lot on their weight or looks, and value who they are disregarding their looks. Having a healthy body image is important because it helps

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you focus on the more important things in life instead of dwelling on how you look all the time. It is also important to identify what having a negative body image looks like. From a young age, girls and boys both have an ideal body that they would prefer to have. Wanting an ideal body is not a trait we are born with, it is more of a learned behavior. While most people identify body image issues with girls, boys too have their own insecurities. In a recent study, it was found that boys develop negative body issues at a young age. “Some boys who are underweight are ashamed of their bodies. They may start exercising excessively in hopes of bulking up muscle. They may spend all their spare time working out, neglecting school and friends. Exercise is not just a healthy, fun activity to them. These boys allow exercise to become the most important thing in their lives” (Conway, 2013). These boys feel so negative about their bodies that exercising ends up consuming most their daily lives that they do not focus on anything else. Everyone gets self conscious of their bodies while some people are more self conscious than others. There are many factors of someone who has an unhealthy body image. According to The Body Image Workbook for Teens, a n unhealthy body image consists of negatively obsessing over their looks, have an inaccurate perception of what they really look like, compare themselves to others, blame their body, and believe all their problems will go away if they looked differently. Most of these symptoms are psychological. These symptoms can also be influenced by your cultural background. Many people from all over the world decide to move to America. If you come from a different country you are more likely to bring your culture’s society’s body image standard to America. In America, there are many different types of people from different ethnic backgrounds. Body image standards are different all over the world.“It has been reported in the literature that

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the relationship between body image and actual weight status differs across various cultures and countries” (Noh, Kwon, Yang, Cheon, & Kim, 2018). Since body image would vary from your culture and country, in America it would of course more likely have people compare themselves to others. America is very diverse. There are many people from different ethnic backgrounds. This would cause one person of a certain background to desire what someone from a different background has that they do not have in their physical appearance. For example, Caucasian women would compare themselves to others from different races. “Further, research has shown that Caucasian women experience a decrease in body satisfaction after exposure to a thin ideal while African American women do not” (Claudat, Warren, & Durette, 2012; DeBraganza & Hausenblas, 2010 as cited in Bruns & Carter, 2015). Caucasian women would consider thin bodies to be their ideal body type while African American women did not consider that as a factor in their ideal body type. Everywhere around the world has their own preference about the “ideal” body. “Mediated images of female and male bodies differ around the globe, as does the degree to which these influence cultures because social pressure and norms associated with the importance of physical appearance vary…” (Andsager, 2014).Culture and society highly influence one’s ideal body type. Everyone wants to resemble each other and no one wants to stand out. Cultural background is not the only factor in why people feel a certain way about their body; it also could be all psychological. People who have a negative body image are most likely thinking too much about their bodies negatively. They think something is wrong with them but in reality it is all in their head. Some think that everything that goes wrong in their lives is all because of their body. “Body image attitudes are assumed to play a central role in how individuals respond to situations and

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events that threaten or challenge their body image” (Cash 2011 as cited in Glashouwer, Bennik, Jong, and Spruyt, 2018). If they have a negative body image, they will have the attitude of thinking they can act a certain way because of the way their body looks. A negative body image is a psychological factor. To them, they think if they look a certain way they are entitled to act a certain way to have privileges and disadvantages. Social media also has a major impact on the way people feel about themselves. Social media is everywhere no matter how hard you try to ignore it, it is always there. Teens use social media primarily to entertain themselves and communicate with each other.“Based on an exhaustive series of interviews with teens across the United States, boyd (2014) argued that young people spend time engaging with social media primarily for the purposes of entertainment and sociality, not necessarily for seeking information, which supports the notion that U.S. girls might encounter a wider variety of body images than they would in using traditional media…” (Andsager, 2014). Although social media could be used to inform, young people are using it for other purposes such as for their own entertainment. Within entertaining themselves, they could come across a wide range of body types and would want it for themselves. “Research on the impact of media has reliably demonstrated that exposure to thin-ideal images increases body dissatisfaction in women” (Prichard, McLachlan, Lavis, and Tiggeman, 2018). The media impacts women on another level. It makes them dissatisfied with their bodies once they see that all the celebrities and models that they look up to are all thin. In their heads, they would think that they need to look like that to have a similar lifestyle to that of a celebrity. This is not true in terms of the idea that if you look a certain way you will live your life as a different person.

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Looking around and comparing yourself to others seems ridiculous. It is not. There are factors that cause people to do this; from cultural background to psychological factors to social media. In that room of people standing in front of mirror, they all have an idea of what they want to look like. Everyday is a struggle for people who constantly compare themselves and have a negative body mindset. Social media is a cause of this but it is also helping society fix this problem with celebrities and influencers using the term “body positivity” and “self love”. In using these terms it helps everyone accept themselves for who they are.

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Works Cited Andsager, J. (2014). Research directions in social media and body image. Sex Roles , 71(11-12). 407-413. doi:10.1007/s11199-014-0430-4 Bruns, G. L., & Carter, M. M. (2015). Ethnic differences in the effects of media on body image: The effects of priming with ethnically different or similar models. Eating Behaviors , 17, 33-36. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.12.006 Conway, C. (2013). Body Image and the Media . Retrieved from http://uhproxy.lib.hawaii.edu:2052/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=544407&site =ehost-live Glashouwer, K. A., Bennik, E. C., De Jong, P. J., & Spruyt, A. (2018). Implicit measures of actual versus ideal body image: Relations with self-reported body dissatisfaction and dieting Behaviors. Cognitive Therapy and Research , 42(5), 622–635. doi:10.1007/s10608-018-9917-6 Noh, J., Kwon, Y., Yang, Y., Cheon, J., & Kim, J. (2018). Relationship between body image and weight status in east Asian countries: Comparison between South Korea and Taiwan. BMC Public Health, 18, 814. doi:10.1186/s12889-018-5738-5 Prichard, I., McLachlan, A., Lavis, C., & Tiggemann, T. (2017). The impact of different forms of #fitspiration imagery on body image, mood, and self-objectification among young women. Sex Roles , 78(11-12). 789-798. doi: 10.1007/s11199-017-0830-3 Taylor, J. V., & Wardy, M. A. (2014).The Body Image Workbook for Teens  : Activities to Help Girls Develop a Healthy Body Image in an Image-Obsessed World . Retrieved from http://uhproxy.lib.hawaii.edu:2052/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=920047&site =ehost-live...