Factors Influencing Body Image Dissatisfaction?

There are certain factors influencing body image dissatisfaction, such as, sociocultural influences, role of gender, perceptual factors, familial factors, and the role of media are important to be taken into account while making interventions such as healthy eating and weight management. The psychological factors suggest dissatisfaction with body leads to decrease in self worth (Parks, 1997). Body image dissatisfaction will determine our motivation to exercise or avoid it, for example, ‘feeling fat’ can prevent from going to gym due to the sports culture that promotes an ideal body while motivate us (Grogan et al., 2004). Body image can be changed through influences by peers, family and media (Thompson et al., 1999).
1. Gender and Body image

For girls, body image is related to how slim and fat they are (Peterson, 1990).Media plays an important role in changing the cues of how a body is looked upon and evaluated. Idealized figures in the media is valued and personal insults and discrimination are recognized as factors for increased dissatisfaction within one’s body. The media portrays women as the ’thin ideal’ without imperfections. This ideal consists of women who are of a slender feminine physique, with a small waist and little body fat. Harper and Tiggemann (2008) found that 94% of women’s magazine covers depicted an image of a thin idealised body. These images are not only difficult to attain, but can even become dangerous for one’s mental and physical health. Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) argues that girls and women subject their body to constant monitoring, which in turn leads to body dissatisfaction and sometimes, even eating disorders. Whilst body objectification is increasing, it has made women and girls make a conscious effort to change their physical appearance through any way possible. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) report that the internalisation of idealized images often results in many negative psychological effects including depression, anxiety and ultimately eating disorders and with the increase in accessibility to these images, the concern for these effects is larger than ever before. Recently, social media has become a huge part of everyday life for most, particularly for young people. This is due to on-going advancements in technology in the last five decades. Nowadays, in Ireland, there is 1.6 million people with Smartphone’s, making access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, easier than ever before. There have been many studies and debates on whether the media has negative or