Your evaluation is an expression of your body image!
When you look at yourself in a full-length mirror, what do you see?
Your evaluation is an expression of your body image. To include the multi-dimensional construct of your cognitive, behavioral, perceptual, and affective perspectives. In these categories, we assess how we see, think about, feel about, and respond to our physical appearance.
Many people have a tendency to evaluate their appearance from a negative cognitive perspective, as a result of environmental influences; social media, social appraisal, misrepresentation of individuals through photo editing/filters, and social judgement.
We are likely to see our flaws before our desirable characteristics simply because we have been influenced by these factors to decide and compare what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see all of the things about ourselves that do not stack up to the body image we have created in our minds; a combination of the many things that we have deemed acceptable as a result of the factors listed above.
How we see, think about, and feel about the way that our body looks can profoundly influence our self-worth. This, in turn, can determine how we present ourselves in situations that challenge and intimidate us. This lesson series aims to deepen your understanding of body image and how it relates to growth and development.
In this article, you will learn more about how you see, think about, feel about, and respond to the perception of your own physical appearance.
The four aspects of body image:
When you think of your body image, I imagine you immediately think of your physical appearance; how you see yourself. But your actual body image is a combination of the thoughts and feelings that you have about the way that you look. You can break down body image into four different categories of perception, including:
Perceptual body image:
The way that you see your physical self. This is not always accurate, as we can all develop skewed perceptions of our physical selves as a result of environmental influences.
Affective body image:
The way that you feel about your physical self. This includes any feelings that you might have about individual parts of your body or your body as a whole. Environmental factors and the development of skewed perceptions can all influence these feelings of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, happiness, empowerment, or even disgust.
Cognitive body image:
The way that you think about your physical self. A combination of your perceptual and affective perspectives develops your thought process. You may think about your physical self in a certain way because of social appraisal and/or social judgement.
Behavioral body image:
The way that you respond to your physical self. Whether you are satisfied or dissatisfied with your appearance, the way that you react to your thoughts, feelings, and observations, defines your behavioral body image. These are the actions that you take to change or protect your image.
These four aspects define your body image; the image that you see, and the image that you believe that everyone else sees too.
The depth of body image perceptions:
The way that we think about our bodies can influence us in ways that we never thought possible. Oftentimes, in ways that easily go overlooked, especially when we are talking about physical development. When we take intentional steps to get bigger, get stronger, and gain weight, we can easily assess ourselves from a skewed perspective; one that is influenced by the unacceptable nature of weight gain and wearing larger clothing sizes. We, as human beings, are naturally critical in an effort to create a more acceptable version of ourselves.
Present environmental factors can influence body image, and also those in the past.
These influences vary and may affect one, while not affecting another. For instance, you may feel triggered by wearing a bigger clothing size because, during childhood, you experienced situations that labeled this as bad, while others feel empowered to wear a bigger size because they were bullied for being small.
My body image and my perception of an acceptable or ideal body image may greatly differ from yours, as my influences will vary, now and in the past.
When we experience something repeatedly, for example, hearing my mother always talking about how she needed to lose weight in order to achieve an acceptable body image, we develop our own understanding of what is acceptable and what is not. Without taking the time to evaluate these experiences, we are unable to differentiate between the realistic and unrealistic expectations of our physical image.
My mother demonstrated to me what unacceptable looked like by shaming herself and her body for having excess body fat around her middle. Her affectual body image became mine, leaving me fearful of stomach fat altogether. The way that she felt about her stomach fat influenced me to never want to feel that same ‘shame’ that she portrayed day after day. For the duration of my childhood, I obsessed over my stomach, initiating behaviors like body checking and orthorexic tendencies.
Body checking, the repeated checking of one’s appearance, weight, shape, size, etc, is actually so common in our society today, most think that it is a normal human behavior. Let me be the one to tell you that, in excess, it is not normal and can allude to difficulties with body acceptance.
Going back to the story about my mom… It isn’t just our childhood experiences and nurturing that can influence the development of the body image that we carry with us every day. The situations you had during the developmental stages of your life can also have an impact. Maybe somebody made fun of you for your size or your acne or your lack of boobs. Maybe you were tormented by the chafing between your legs and decided that your thighs were too big as a result. Or, maybe your friends and family praised the appearance of those who were a particular shape and size and you became apt to want to be that shape and size too. This is the foundation we build the perception of body image upon.
Environmental influences such as these can cause us to have an unrealistic appearance ideal that impacts the choices that we make. When we struggle or fail to see our appearance change in the ways that we expect, we begin to feel that we cannot live up to these appearance ideals. It is this that ultimately begins the creation of a negative body image.
Throughout the course of our adult lives, this appearance ideal is fed by the experiences that we partake in; dieting, social appraisal, lifting, etc. We may feel so good after dieting, having watched our body change to become closer to our appearance ideal, that we are compelled to continue, even when it is no longer providing us with adequate nutrition.
On the other side of the spectrum, we can experience the same feelings after being praised for changes to our physical appearance. When we are praised for ‘having lost weight’ or for ‘looking smaller in the hips’, we develop a tendency to want to continue to look like and feel like that appearance ideal of which we were praised for. And lifting is really quite the same. While lifting weights can be so rewarding, the obsession that some people talk about is real. As we watch our bodies transform before us, we become victim to the realization that if we lift, we change, and are therefore in control of the changes that can ultimately create our appearance ideal. For some, that is realistic, but for others, it is very much the opposite.
But, influence is not all bad and it doesn’t all lead to the creation of a negative body image. These same environmental factors can also influence the creation of body acceptance.
Understanding your own body image:
The purpose of this lesson was to educate you on the different aspects of one’s body image and how environmental factors influence the body image that you have. It is important to note that no body image is ever all negative or all positive. You might love one thing about your body and strongly dislike another. You might love everything about your body, but one single thing. Every person is different.
Understanding how you actually see yourself can help you to redesign your mindset to become one that is more accepting.
In the next article, we will evaluate how body image affects your physical development.
