How many people are unhappy with their body

Call our National Helpline on 33 You can also chat online or email. There is often a combination of risk factors, including genetics, emotional factors and cultural influences.

No matter your size, shape, age, abilities, gender identity, sexuality, cultural or linguistic background, economic status or location, anyone can experience an eating disorder.

Body image is the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs we have about our bodies and how we look, including our shape, size, weight, and the way our body functions for us. There are many factors that can contribute to poor body image and body dissatisfaction.

Body image issues affect people of all ages, genders and across all cultures. Feeling positive about your body is an individual journey and will be different for everyone. But creating body satisfaction, self-confidence, self-love, or even just body acceptance is possible. Whether for you, a friend, a family member, a client, or anyone else that you care about, Butterfly is here to offer support. Our helpline is free and confidential, and our specialist counsellors offer non-judgmental support over the phone, by email and by online chat, seven days a week.

Find eating disorder professionals, services and treatment nearest to you, through our Referral Database, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our Helpline and support services are not only for people impacted by eating disorders and body image issues, but also for clinicians and other health and education professionals.

Butterfly's Referral Database provides a directory of professionals, screened for an understanding of eating disorders, so people Australia-wide can find appropriate care.. Patients with a clinical diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and other eating disorders may be eligible for new Medicare rebates under the Eating Disorder Medicare Plan.

However, overall, the research suggests that body image can be influenced by:. There are further issues relevant to body image and mental health that are specific to certain factors and experiences, such as:.

The results highlighted that:. Clearly action is needed to build and promote positive body image and support good mental health and wellbeing in relation to our bodies. Make a conscious effort to follow or like body positivity pages. Being involved in a forum where all body shapes and sizes are respected will make you feel included and better about yourself.

Educate yourself. Understand how social media works, how people interact it, and the various ways social media content is manipulated. Always remind yourself that social media posts are rarely a true reflection of reality. This will enable you to be more compassionate towards yourself. Patterns of body image concerns and disordered weight- and shape-related behaviors in heterosexual and sexual minority adolescent males.

Dev Psychol. Eating-disordered behavior in adolescent boys: eating disorder examination questionnaire norms. Int J Ea t Disord. Subthreshold body dysmorphic disorder in adolescents: Prevalence and impact. Boys, bulk, and body ideals: Sex differences in weight-gain attempts among adolescents in the United States. Gender norms and weight control behaviors in US adolescents: A prospective cohort study — DSM-5 full syndrome, other specified,and unspecified eating disorders in Australian adolescents: prevalence andclinical significance.

Body image perceptions and symptoms of disturbed eating behavior among children and adolescents in Germany. Gender difference in the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms. Int J Eat Disord. Association between muscularity dissatisfaction and body dissatisfaction among normal-weight French men. J Mens Health. The prevalence of body dysmorphic disorder: a population-based survey.

Psychol Med. Eating disorders in adolescent boys and young men: an update. Prevalence and correlates of disordered eating behaviors among young adults with overweight or obesity. The swimsuit issue: Correlates of body image in a sample of 52, heterosexual adults.

Body image and eating patterns among adolescents. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 23 3 , Never too old for eating disorders or body dissatisfaction: A community study of elderly women.

International Journal of Eating Disorders, 39 7 , Beyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the foundation of beauty beliefs.

Eating Disorders, 12 1 , The good, the bad, and the beautiful: Beauty ideals on the Disney and Nickelodeon channels. Does Barbie make girls want to be thin? The effect of experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of 5-to 8-year-old girls. Developmental psychology, 42 2 , Exposure to the mass media and weight concerns among girls.

This is in contrast to the aforementioned studies e. Interestingly, compared to our study, Tylka and Wood-Barcalow 55 reported slightly higher values from 3. Furthermore, the significant interaction in our study suggested that body appreciation also improves in women across age, and older vs.

This is in line with Tiggemann and McCourt 20 , who found greater body appreciation in older than in younger women. Regarding men, as pointed out above, no previous study has investigated the impact of age on body appreciation.

In our study, the level of body appreciation remained quite stable across different ages in men, and was lower compared to that of women. This is in line with previous research, which found that BMI was positively associated with body dissatisfaction in both genders e.

Body appreciation was found to be negatively correlated with BMI for both genders, which is partially in line with previous research: One study found this association for women but not for men 53 , while other studies yielded mixed findings, reporting either a negative association between BMI and body appreciation e.

Concerning the importance of appearance, we found no significant association with BMI for either gender. In line with our results, some previous studies found no association between the importance of appearance and BMI in both men and women 13 , 84 , while others reported a positive correlation for women but no significant association for men The latter may be explained by the differentiation between the importance of appearance and the investment of time in appearance, as we found that BMI was positively associated with the number of invested hours for both genders, but was only associated with the number of years participants would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance in women.

These findings emphasize the distinction between the evaluative perspective of the importance of appearance How essential are my looks to me?

For instance, a person may place importance on his or her appearance, but as appearance is less important than years of his or her life, he or she is unwilling to invest much effort in appearance.

As shown in our study, women reported quite stable, higher levels of importance across age than did men. Consequently, it might be assumed that they have to invest more time in order to achieve their ideal appearance.

Nevertheless, as older men and women would invest fewer hours and sacrifice fewer years, the extent of investment or sacrifice is evidently not expressed by the importance of appearance. These results are in line with those of Cash 16 and Fallon et al. Therefore, on average, men and women may be neither particularly dissatisfied nor particularly satisfied with their bodies. In consideration of all of the aforementioned research, one has to raise the more general question of whether the absence of body dissatisfaction is synonymous with the presence of body satisfaction in terms of a continuum model as proposed by Thompson et al.

Another possibility lies in an alternative model, in which body satisfaction and body dissatisfaction coexist alongside one another.

For instance, it may be possible for a person to report high levels of overall body dissatisfaction, while simultaneously reporting high levels of body satisfaction with certain areas e. This could result in neither agreement nor disagreement on a continuum scale. Further research is needed to investigate a possible coexistence of both concepts.

Some limitations have to be mentioned when interpreting the results of the present study. Although several coefficients turned out to be significant, they contribute only a minimum of change to the dependent variables. In addition, according to the conventions of Cohen 86 , we found very small values for the R 2 s, as the R 2 s in the present study explained only 0.

Moreover, as was the case for most of the previous studies except for 15 and 56 , we did not investigate age effects in a longitudinal design. Therefore, it is not possible to disentangle the effects of age and birth cohorts. The effects found in this study may be related to different birth cohorts, the way in which people were brought up and socialized, or different ideals of beauty and fashion. Longitudinal studies including different age cohorts of men and women are therefore required.

Another limitation may lie in the assessment method. As younger people use the internet more frequently than older people 87 , it cannot be excluded that this could have led to a stronger selection bias in older participants. Further, the online assessment may not be representative for the general population Thus, there was no control regarding the implementation conditions of participation e.

False answers on variables such as weight, height, and age seem to be easier to notice in the laboratory. However, false statements concerning the variables of body image may be just as difficult to detect in the laboratory or in paper-and-pencil examinations as in online assessments.

Furthermore, our sample included more women than men. This may reflect the fact that women are more likely to participate in studies than men e.

Although general and generalized linear models are able to control for different sample sizes, men and women differed significantly regarding age, height, weight, and self-esteem. While the differences in weight and height could be explained by natural gender differences, men were slightly older than women. As a further limitation, the assessment was restricted to certain body-related aspects and omitted other concepts such as the drive for muscularity 35 or drive for thinness We only included appearance-related aspects of body image and body appreciation in order to shorten the length of our study and to decrease the burden of our survey on respondents.

Therefore, we concentrated on more general aspects related to the cognitive-affective component of body image. Future studies need to investigate the impact of gender and age on other components of body image, such as perceptual estimation of body size e. Although some studies have already investigated body image regarding genders other than the distinct categories of male and female e.

Moreover, we did not investigate the relation between sexual orientation and body image, although previous studies have found indications of an influence of sexual orientation on body image 96 — Therefore, future research should investigate the impact of age on body image for different sexual orientations. In conclusion, the present study is one of the first to examine body dissatisfaction, importance of appearance, the number of hours participants would be willing to invest per day to achieve their ideal appearance and the number of years they would sacrifice to achieve their ideal appearance, and body appreciation in relation to gender and age.

Body appreciation was higher in older than in younger women and women reported higher levels of body appreciation compared to men. While the importance of appearance was lower in older than in younger men and remained stable in women, neither gender was willing to relinquish a large amount of time for the sake of their appearance. Although we found higher body dissatisfaction for women than for men, both genders seem to be neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their bodies on average.

Eating disorder prevention programs, or therapeutic approaches for several mental disorders, could benefit from a more functional perspective on the absence of body satisfaction, as this does not necessarily equate with the presence of body dissatisfaction. The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author. RD and HQ analyzed the data. HQ wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the compilation of the manuscript and read and approved the submitted version.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Updates on the prevalence of body dysmorphic disorder: a population-based survey. Psychiatry Res 1 —5. Hartmann AS. Der Body Image Disturbance Questionnaire. Diagn — Cash TF. Body image: past, present, and future.

Body Image Exacting beauty: theory, assessment, and treatment of body image disturbance. Google Scholar. Tuschen-Caffier B. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Grogan S.

Body Image: understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children. Development and predictive effects of eating disorder risk factors during adolescence: implications for prevention efforts. Int J Eating Disord 48 2 — Childhood maltreatment, depressive symptoms, and body dissatisfaction in patients with binge eating disorder: The mediating role of self-criticism.

Int J Eating Disord 43 3 — How has body image changed? J Consulting Clin Psychol 72 6 —9. Garner DM. The body image survey results. Psychol Today — Quality of life impairment associated with body dissatisfaction in a general population sample of women. BMC Public Health 13 1 Tiggemann M, Lacey C. Shopping for clothes: body satisfaction, appearance investment, and functions of clothing among female shoppers. Body Image 6 4 — Psychol Men Masc — A year longitudinal study of body weight, dieting, and eating disorder symptoms.

J Abnormal Psychol 2 Body Image 11 3 — Attitudinal body-image assessment: factor analysis of the Body-Self Relations Questionnaire. J Pers Assess 55 1—2 — The body appreciation scale: development and psychometric evaluation.

Body Image 2 3 — Tiggemann M, McCourt A. Body appreciation in adult women: relationships with age and body satisfaction. Body Image 10 4 —7. Body dissatisfaction, body fat and physical activity in British children. Int J Pediatr Obesity 1 2 — Body dissatisfaction prospectively predicts depressive mood and low self-esteem in adolescent girls and boys.