Do You Love Your Body?
April 1, 2009 by Cherie Burbach
Filed under Women's Health
There isn’t a woman around that doesn’t feel awkward about her body a little. Most of us have some issues here and there with at least one body part.
Glamour magazine wanted to find out what women really thought about their bodies, and more than that, why some women felt confident while others didn’t. They did their very first “body survey” in 1984. Do the words “leotards” and “high-impact aerobics” ring a bell at all? That was 1984. During that first survey, “75 percent of women surveyed felt they were too fat, and more than 60 percent said they were dissatisfied with or ashamed of their stomach, hips and thighs.”
Twenty-five years later, Glamour has done another survey, asking many of the same questions. They’ve found that “more than 40 percent of women still seem to be struggling with their body image.” However, there was one noticeable change. “Women under 30 are now 22 percent more likely to say they are happy with their bodies than older women are.” I know some of you women are thinking that is because younger women have better bodies in general, but it’s really more than that. For example, I’m much more comfortable with my body now and it’s heavier and less toned than it was in my 20s. In other words, age has a lot to do with things.
Women also said have professional success made them feel better about their body all over. Exercise made them feel good about certain body parts, as did having sex. Eating a healthy diet also worked. Glamour concluded that you should spend time with people that make you feel good about yourself. (I second that!) After all, we all have “days” where we feel negative, so surrounding yourself with positive folks will help you get over negative self-talk quicker. In other words, all of us might have areas we don’t like, we are beautiful nonetheless. Don’t focus on what you think is negative. Chances are, you’re the only one that does.
Image: sxc.hu.
In regards to the stat that younger women (under 30) were 20% more likely to say they are happy with their bodies than older women: Do you think this a result of a successful shift towards self-love for our younger generations? Or, does this stem from increasing cultural and media pressures on women in their 40s, 50s and beyond to maintain an image that was previously only expected of teenagers and twenty-something’s? The Center for Eating Disorders wrote a blog about this survey (http://eatingdisorder.org/blog/2009/06/13/glamour-magazines-2009-body-image-survey-insight-with-a-heavy-dose-of-mixed-messages/) and that’s one of the questions that was posed. Would love to hear your thoughts.
I think it’s a little of both. Younger women today are much more comfortable than their moms were at the same age.
But it’s also a result of average women in their 40s seeing impossible standards in models and actresses of the same age. Not everyone has the means to get “touch up” plastic surgery or work out all day while someone cleans their house. So women can feel as if they are not “living up” to the examples they see on TV and in the movies.