Gender plays a significant role in body image, with women more likely to associate it with self-esteem and hold themselves to unrealistic standards. Men feel pressure to appear muscular, while women feel pressure to be thin. Both genders face stresses related to social ideals and suffer when their body image differs from their idealized image.
All people have a body image or self-perception of their physical attributes grouped with personal beliefs about attractiveness and appeal. Some people have a healthy and accurate body image, others tend not to think much about their bodies, and still others have unhealthy, critical and negative perceptions of their bodies. While many different factors can influence one’s self-perception, scientific studies have shown a strong connection between gender and body image. Such studies have suggested that, in general, women are more likely than men to associate body image with self-esteem and to hold themselves to unrealistic physical standards. This link between gender and body image is thought to be related, in part, to unequal gender standards and roles in society.
There are a variety of different socially conditioned standards that many men and women hold up to. In many cases, people of both genders judge themselves by these often unrealistic standards. An important link between gender and body image can be seen in the fact that these socially conditioned standards differ substantially by gender. Men, for example, often feel pressured to appear bulky and muscular while women experience social pressure to be thin, often to an unhealthy degree. Many people of both genders tend to fixate on ways they deviate from these social ideals, and their body image tends to reflect this.
Studies have shown that the reasons people exercise and diet vary somewhat by gender. Gender and body image are linked by the fact that males, in many cases, are just as likely to want to gain weight and mass as they are to lose it. This is almost never the case for women, who train almost exclusively to lose weight. Another connection between gender and body image exists as low self-esteem and poor body image are more commonly linked in women than in men. Overall, male self-esteem tends to be less affected by body image than female self-esteem.
While there are many connections between gender and body image, it should be noted that members of both genders share many similar body image traits that are not strictly related to gender. Members of both genders face stresses related to social ideals and have to contend with the unrealistic images portrayed by many aspects of society. Both also tend to suffer a bit when their body image differs substantially from their idealized image of an attractive body. This condition tends to lead to an unhealthy body image which can have deleterious effects on self-esteem and other aspects of mental health.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
