14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers have recently discovered that the way women view their bodies is only slightly affected by standard anthropometric measurements, such as for example the body-mass index. Most often, their opinions are heavily influenced by the way important persons in their lives feel about their bodies.
This has the prevailing influence on self-image, at least in women, say investigators from the Ohio State University (OSU). The investigation was conducted by a team of experts led by Dr. Tracy Tylka.
According to the researcher, this type of perception provides women with ample opportunities to focus their attention on how their bodies feel and function, rather than on how they look. But this view is not necessarily a healthy one, the expert adds.
Tylka explains that women who apply this approach tend to eat intuitively more often than their peers who don't. This means that they do not regulate their meals based on emotions or the presence of food.
“Women who focus more on how their bodies function and less on how they appear to others are going to have a healthier, more positive body image and a tendency to eat according to their bodies’ needs rather than according to what society dictates,” the team leader believes.
She holds an appointment as an OSU associate professor of psychology, and was also the senior author of the new study, which is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology.
The new investigation is meant to be a follow-up of past studies, which have determined that about 50 percent of all women are satisfied with, and appreciate, their bodies. Researchers wanted to determine the mechanisms that made these women arrive at this result.
OSU experts also tried to identify any potential factors that may be involved with hindering this type of positive thinking in women. Respect was finally identified as the primary factor, PsychCentral reports.
Additionally, it was found that women who liked their bodies were more likely to nourish themselves properly, exercise, and take annual or bi-annual health screenings to check for diseases.
“And it turns out we look to whether others accept our bodies to determine whether we appreciate them ourselves. It’s not our weight, but instead whether others in our social network appreciate us.,” Tylka explains.
“That implies that people should be convinced to be less judgmental and to focus less on weigh,” she goes on to say. In an experiment the OSU group conducted, BMI was found to have a negligible influence on how women perceived their own bodies.
“It was a cool finding, that BMI’s association with body appreciation is mediated by how we view others’ acceptance of our bodies,” the team leader says.
“So if women are heavy, they can have a good body image if they don’t perceive that important others are trying to change their body shape or weight and instead accept them as who they are,” she adds.
“And vice versa, if women have a low BMI, they might have a poor body image if they perceive that influential people don’t accept their appearance, but not because of their weight,” the expert concludes.