Body Confidence

Having a positive body image is important for mental health and emotional wellbeing.

What is body image?
- How you feel about your own body and how it affects your mood.
Body image Resources
- Further sources of advice and information about body image.

WHAT IS BODY IMAGE?

When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? If you answered ‘yes’, you’re in the minority as more than half the population admit to being unhappy with their body.

Issues surrounding body image and low self esteem have been a worldwide epidemic for a while now. And with the rise of social media, and more specifically image-based apps like Instagram and Snapchat, it’s only getting worse for the younger generations.

YoungMinds, the charity dedicated to young people’s mental health and wellbeing, carried out a consultation with young people between 12 and 24 in order to find out what affects body image and what steps could be taken to improve it generally for young people. The article below is taken from that report and may help you have a more positive body image.

Who or what do you think is primarily responsible for influencing an individual’s body image?

Parents can have either a positive or a negative influence on children and young people. The young people from our VIK group thought that this was particularly the case for young people up until their mid-teens, and when the young person was living in the family home.

As the young person gets older, their peer group has more influence. There are also external influences such as the media and fashion. A concern with these role models is that models are generally skinny, and ‘perfect’. The message that this gives to young people is that you have to be skinny if you want to be successful, popular etc. Famous people who have a weight problem, or are less than ‘perfect’ e.g. have cellulite, spare tyre etc. are humiliated by the media. They have been known to print the most unflattering photographs, and highlight the cellulite etc. Any famous people, who have a weight problem, are made a joke of by the media.

Are any particular groups particularly affected by poor body image? (e.g socio-economic status, age, gender, ethnicity)? If so why?

Young people are particularly affected by poor body image. This is in part likely to be connected to their developmental age, but also the fact that they are bombarded with pictures in the media showing them what a ‘perfect’ body image should be. There are issues for both males and females. It is well known that females have issues with body image, but there are also pressures on men as well to look a particular way. For instance, there are pressures put on men to be either a body builder, or a skinny rocker. Both of which are extreme body types.

Your body image is a reflection of your mental state, regardless of whether you eat too much or too little. Your body image isn’t static, but can change depending on your circumstances and the context. It is connected to your lifestyle, and there is a correlation between body image and mental health. For instance, some medications can affect your weight, and conditions such as depression can prevent you from wanting to go out and partake in exercise. There are of course other mental health issues such as eating disorders, and body dysmorphic disorder, where people have a distorted body image.

Most young people are likely to be affected by issues associated with body image. However, Young people with existing mental health issues will probably find it harder to cope with issues concerning body image.

At what age do you believe a person becomes aware of the need to reach appearance ideals?

Again this will depend on their background, but many will be aware of body image by primary school age.

What do you think has a positive influence on an individual’s body image?

There should be lessons on body image in schools. This should be coupled with lessons on being healthy e.g. body health, healthy diet, exercise and so on.

The media and fashion industry could be a positive influence, but these companies would need to change their attitudes connected to using skinny models. There are some good examples, but they are in the minority.

What do you think has a negative influence on an individual’s body image?

The media and the fashion industry can make people more anxious about their body image, and more paranoid about the way they look. Young people face a lot of pressure concerning their body image. If these pressures make people more anxious etc about their body image, then the stress may come out in different ways.

What are the links, if any, between obesity, eating disorders and poor body image?

People with eating disorders often have a distorted body image, and can believe that they are fat, even when they are dangerously thin. Eating disorders are also associated with stressful factors in their lives, and restricting their food intake gives them back some control over their lives.

Health and wellbeing

Body image anxiety is likely to have a greater impact on young people with existing mental health problems. Having a negative body image is likely to result in people saying that it is impacting on their sense of wellbeing. The Good Childhood Inquiry found that 10-15% of young people reported that they were unhappy with their appearance (Children’s Society, 2012).

What are the economic, social and environmental costs to society from poor body image?

Poor body image can be a motivating factor to change something about your body that you don’t like, such as being a bit over weight. However, this can be a serious problem when you dislike your body to the extent that you stop eating, over exercise etc., in an attempt to change your body image.

Poor body image can often be associated with mental health and emotional wellbeing problems. There are about 1 in 10 children and young people with a mental disorder (Green, 2005), and about 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by eating disorders (b-eat, 2004). More than half of all adults with mental health problems were diagnosed in childhood. Less than half were treated appropriately at the time (Kim-Cohen, 2003).

Is there a deliberate strategy by some companies (e.g. in the diet, health, fashion and beauty industries) to generate poor body image in order to create a demand for goods and services?

The media bombards people with images about what they should be wearing, the make-up they need to be using and so on, and this can produce poor body image. The fashion industry uses unrealistically skinny models and this gives people, especially young people, an unrealistic idea of body image. These unrealistic ideas about how we should look, puts excessive pressure on young people to try and look a certain way. This can contribute to them developing eating disorders in an attempt to become skinny.

What steps, if any, do you think the following sectors can take to promote body confidence or address body image anxiety?

Advertising – use normal sized people as well and don’t just use skinny models. Therefore giving a more normalised view of body size/image. The way that women are portrayed needs to change. It isn’t always seen as sexy to have a womanly figure, but a prepubescent figure is seen as sexy.
Education/schools – lessons that build resilience and self-esteem. The aim being to ensure that children and young people have good emotional wellbeing and have a healthy body image. Also, have specific lessons connected to body image. Also, schools need to have a greater understanding of eating disorders, and be more supportive. We hear anecdotally that high achieving schools do not acknowledge that young people, often girls, have eating disorders. Not providing adequate support only makes the problem worse, and further stigmatises mental health issues.
Government – actively encourage schools to have lessons that build emotional wellbeing, and develop a healthy body image. At the moment the focus is on behaviour management and academic achievement. Schools that don’t see the importance of emotional wellbeing, often overlook it.
Fashion industry – use normal sized people, and don’t use skinny models

To what extent does the Government’s response to poor body image (e.g. promoting health behaviour) represent value for money given the amount of resource put in which may undermine good body image?

Promoting health behaviours needs to include promoting emotional wellbeing and self-esteem as well as the importance of positive body image, to ensure that young people are more resilient and able to cope with the various pressures put upon them. However, mental health and emotional wellbeing are generally not covered very well, if at all, in PSHE lessons.

There needs to be regular, high quality work to address poor body image to ensure that it stands any chance of reducing the influence from the media etc.

Is there any evidence that diets and dieting improve or damage an individual’s body image?

There is a link between body image and people’s mental state. Your body image can be positive and can change depending on your circumstances or context. Dieting can improve your own body image, but it isn’t necessarily always positive and can be very unhealthy. For instance, if you currently over weight, dieting could improve your body image. However, if you have a normal body weight, but want to be thinner, then being on a diet might help you achieve your ‘ideal’ body image, but it could be dangerous.

Other Comments

Our main points are that young people with existing mental health problems generally find it harder to cope with the pressures put on them concerning body image. Young people, especially young women in highly pressured environments often develop eating disorders.

Schools could help to build a positive body image, develop self-esteem and build resilience as part of PSHE lessons.