The Importance Of Body Image

Body image is defined as the way in which we perceive our bodies. This incorporates how you as an individual feel about your body, including your weight, shape and height, how you feel about your body as you move (kinesthetic perception), how other people view our bodies and how we feel about our physical appearance; how you speak to yourself about your body. In this chapter the importance of body image will be discussed as well as causes of developing a negative body image to see whether the beauty ideal(s) affect someone's life.

1.1 The importance of body image

Body image has become an obsession in daily life. It is, for example, important how you look to your professional career. In support of this, scientists and Markus Mobius and Tanya Rosenblat have written a research paper called “Why Beauty Matters” to determine why there is an income gap between physical attractive and unattractive people. During their research, they discovered that physically attractive employees are considered to be more suitable for the job and therefore given 10.5% higher salaries compared to unattractive people. The research also claims that physically

A negative body image occurs when someone has an unrealistic perception of his or her body. So someone might feel anxious, ashamed or even awkward about his or her body creating a low self-esteem, depression or eating disorders. This often results in creating a vicious circle for one’s self according to the authors of The Adonis Complex, who claim that the more you focus on your body, the worse you tend to feel about your body. Unfortunately, most people do not know about the hazardous consequences a negative body image can have on your life. A negative body image also increases the risk for extreme weight and body control behaviors like extreme dieting, exercise compulsion, laxative abuse, smoking and