Body Image and Self Esteem

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 920801 89 2
Year 2008

Price: $20.95

  

Body Image and Self-Esteem
Volume 279, Issues in Society

The ‘body beautiful’ is an obsession in today’s age of media overload. Images of apparent human physical perfection bombard us from billboards, magazines, television, movies and the internet. A sense of self-esteem is a challenge for many people, even at the superficial level of one’s personal appearance. The causes of body dissatisfaction are however complex. The media alone does not contribute to eating problems and distorted self-image – factors can be genetic, biochemical, personal or social. The extent of eating disorders, bigorexia, body dysmorphic disorder, over-exercise and cosmetic surgery can all be manifestations of extreme poor self-image. This book explores the range of influences on body image for children, women and men, and looks at ways to promote positive body image and self-esteem.

Chapter 1  Body Dissatisfaction
Body image becomes the biggest worry for young people; Fat fears fuel rise in eating disorders; Study finds body image affects perception of others; The thin edge of the wedge; Very little women; Girls reduced to the sum of their body parts; The body trap; Women and eating issues: understanding food and body image; Body image issues for men; Boys also now feeling the pressure of the beauty myth; The man behind the mask: male body image dissatisfaction; What is an eating disorder?; Body dysmorphic disorder; Over-exercise; It's the great body swindle; 'Doctor, can you make me look like this?'

Chapter 2 Positive body image and self-esteem
Body image and self-esteem; Body image and diets; Building healthy self-esteem; When you want better body image; Self-esteem – feeling OK about who you are; Body image: how to love the skin you're in; Body image – love your body; Your body and you; Body image – let's get real; Through thick and thin: body image problems; eating disorders and media messages.

Glossary; Facts and Figures; Additional Resources; Index



FAST FACTS from this volume
  • Concern about how their body looks is now the biggest worry for the nation's 11- to 24-year-olds, male and female, according to the National Survey of Young Australians. In 2006, body image was the third most pressing issue, behind family conflict and worries over alcohol and drugs. But when asked to rank 14 issues of concern for 2007, 32.3% of respondents put body image in their top three, ahead of family conflict and coping with stress.
  • The number of people regularly taking laxatives, making themselves sick or undergoing extreme fasting jumped from 4.7% in 1995 to 11% in 2005. Over the same period the percentage of people with a psychiatric eating disorder, such as binge eating, rose from 2% to 4.6%. While women were five times more likely to have a disorder, there was a sharp rise in the number of men bingeing and purging.
  • People who are unhappy with their own body are likely to think celebrities are thinner then they really are, new Australian research shows. The study is more evidence that being dissatisfied with your body is likely to distort your perception of other people's bodies.
  • According to the Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria, eating disorders affect about 10% of young women and 1% of young men aged 14 to 24. Anorexia is the third-most common disease in Australian females aged 15 to 24. The Australian Medical Association says stick-thin models contribute to this figure because they have a strong influence on body image and self-esteem among teenagers.
  • The Australian Medical Association wants the federal Government to regulate the fashion industry and set a body mass index minimum for models. The BMI scale is a ratio of weight to height. People scoring between 18.5 and 24.9 are considered to have normal weight and anything below that is unhealthy.
  • A small number of fashion designers and magazines have embraced the idea of "real"-sized models, choosing size 10-14 women to model their clothes. The average Australian woman wears size 14 clothes.
  • The Victorian State Government held an 18-month parliamentary inquiry into body image and its effects on young people. The inquiry's report, handed down in August 2005, found that 68% of 15-year-old girls are dieting at any one time and that young people think magazines and the fashion industry promote negative body images.
  • A recent report found one in five 12-year-old girls regularly used fasting and vomiting to lose weight. One in four Australian girls want to get plastic surgery.
  • Research links sexualisation with 3 of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression.
  • In December 2007, the new federal Governent announced a plan to start weighing four-year-olds as part of an overall health check before they start school. By 2009, all four-year-olds, about 255,000 a year, will know how they shape up in terms of their body mass index – a statistical measure of body fat scaled according to height, age and sex. The weight checks could help to stymie the genuine, growing problem of obesity. One in four Australian children is thought to be overweight or obese, and the Government ranks the problem with smoking and excessive drinking as its main health priorities. But adolescent health experts say the spectre of weigh-ins for four-year-olds will only snare even younger children in the body image trap – and could have the counter effect of accelerating the increase in children with eating disorders.
  • A University of Sydney study of almost 9000 school children around Australia, released in July 2007, found that almost one in five girls aged 16 to 19 were fasting for two-day stretches in a bid to lose weight, double the number who did so in 2000. There were also more students forcibly vomiting up their food to lose weight or smoking as an appetite suppressant.
  • The Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health found that that 72% of the young women surveyed aged between 18 to 22 years wanted to weigh less and only 25% of those in the healthy weight range were happy with their current weight. The study also revealed that nearly 48% of the young women had dieted to lose weight in the previous year. The 2005 National Health Survey reported 9% of females aged 18 to 24 years were classified as underweight.
  • Around one in four Australian men in the healthy weight range believe themselves to be fat, while 17% of men are on a weight loss diet at any given time. Men also worry about being muscular. A desire to fit the ideal masculine image of lean muscularity means that over-exercising and the use of dangerous and illegal drugs (like steroids) are on the rise.
  • It is estimated that about 45% of Western men are unhappy with their bodies to some degree, compared with only 15% some 25 years ago. Gay men and athletes are particularly vulnerable to poor body image or feeling insecure about their bodies.
  • The National Survey of Young Australians survey (Mission Australia, 2007) of 28,000 young people aged 11 to 24 found that body image was a significant concern for 34.9% of females and 27.9% of males. Next to body worries, issues such as family conflict, school problems, suicide and the environment were all secondary.
  • While there are no nationally collected statistics on cosmetic surgery patients and procedures, surgeons report the number of under-18s seeking surgery has risen steadily in the past five years. A recent Dolly magazine survey of 4000 girls aged 11-18 found 27% would have cosmetic surgery if they could, and 2% had. Surgeons say the trend is most prevalent in Sydney and south-east Queensland.