97% Of Women Suffer Poor Body Image; Dissatisfying Job And Relationships May Be To Blame
A shopping trip, going out for drinks, or watching the latest Ryan Gosling film with your girlfriends could be detrimental to your health. Negative comments about body image have become the new norm among friends who get together over a glass of wine and start to critique their bodies as a means of bonding. The “does this make me look fat?” moment opens the door for poor body image among all women who begin to wonder if they look fat too. “Friends getting together and tearing themselves down is such a common thing that it’s hard to avoid," Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., a Cincinnati psychologist who specializes in body image, told Glamour.
When women begin to make comments about their own bodies, they drive other women to think about their bodies as well. In 2012, 14.6 million plastic surgery procedures were performed in the U.S., a five percent increase from 2011, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. These statistics show that more and more Americans are dissatisfied with their body image and resort to cosmetic procedures to “fix” the daily “I hate my body” moments.
In an exclusive Glamour survey, partially designed by Kearney-Cooke, 97 percent of survey respondents reported having severe negative thoughts about their body throughout the course of a full day. The participants in the survey included more than 300 women of all sizes, who were asked to write down how many negative or anxious thoughts about their body they had throughout the course of a full day. On average, the participants had 13 negative body thoughts per day, or one negative thought for every hour they’re awake. However, these poor body issues came as no surprise to the respondents as 63 percent said the number of negative thoughts that they reported was what they expected.
Read more: Judgmental Discrimination Against Overweight People Leads To Obesity
Negative Talk: The New Way Women Bond
Women putting themselves down has evolved into a social norm. Women who say “I love my body” are scorned or singled out because it has become such an unusual thought to be expressed out loud among women. In a group discussion, Kearney-Cooke told Glamour that, from her experience, negative body talk is seen as more socially acceptable than positive body talk, as she witnessed the exchange between two women with opposing body image viewpoints. One woman said, “‘I actually feel OK about the way I look," while another woman scrunched up her face and said, "I have never in my whole life heard anyone say that—and I’m not sure I even believe you."
The Science Behind “I Hate My Body”
Negative body issues may stem from the media and peers, but Kearney-Cooke suggests that women have also programmed themselves to be this way. If you focus on a particular idea, it will shape your brain. Thoughts that run through the mind create chemical reactions in the body, says Personal-development.com. These thoughts help create the brain’s environment, which will impact brain activity and thus inspire habitual thinking. “If you’re constantly thinking negative thoughts about your body, that neural pathway becomes stronger—and those thoughts become habitual,” said Kearney-Cooke to Glamour.
Read more: Talking To Kids About Their Weight: Push For Healthy Eating, Not Weight Loss, Study Says
It’s NOT your body, it's your job and relationships
It’s time to stop putting all of the blame on your body; your negative body image may have little to do with your body and more to do with your career or relationships. Glamour found a link between women's negative body thoughts and their dissatisfaction with their current career or relationship status. Survey respondents who said they were not content with their career or relationships tended to have more negative body thoughts than women who were pleased with those aspects in their life. So, if you have a bad day at work, chances are your body will feel the wrath. “If we’re having a bad day, we often take those negative emotions out on our body, rather than directing them at what’s really troubling us, like our boss or boyfriend,” Nichole Wood, Ph.D., a psychologist at the Laureate Eating Disorders Program in Tulsa, Okla., told Glamour.
To learn how to love your body, check out these 20 ways to feel free and beautiful.