Body image refers to a person's perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his masterpiece The Image and Appearance of the Human Body (1935). Human society has at all times placed great value on beauty of the human body, but a person's perception of their own body may not correspond to society's standards.

The concept of body image is used in numerous disciplines, including psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy and cultural and feminist studies. The term is also often used in the media. Across these disciplines and media there is no consensus definition.

A person's body image is thought to be, in part, a product of their personal experiences, personality, and various social and cultural forces. A person's sense of their own physical appearance, usually in relation to others or in relation to some cultural "ideal," can shape their body image. A person's perception of their appearance can be different from how others actually perceive them.

A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that a culture-wide sexualization of girls (and women) was contributing to increased female anxiety associated with body image. Similar findings associated with body image were found by an Australian government Senate Standing Committee report on the sexualization of children in the media. However, other scholars have expressed concern that these claims are not based on solid data.

Studies conclude that women are more worried about their body image than men and that their concern can impact on their health. Commentators note that people who have a low body image will try to alter their body in some way, such as by dieting or undergoing cosmetic surgery.

Overview

French child psychoanalyst, Francoise Dolto, has developed a theory of the unconscious body image. Negative perceptions by a person regarding their body, such as a perception that they are fat, can in some cases lead to mental disorders such as depression or eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa, though there can be a variety of different reasons why these disorders can occur.

There has recently been a debate within the media industry focusing on the potentially negative impact size zero models can have on young people's body image. It has been suggested that size zero models be banned from cat walks, with many celebrities being targeted by the media due to their often drastic weight loss and slender frames; for example, Nicole Richie and British Super Model Kate Moss. Some examples of celebrity woman Victoria Beckham, regretted in a similar fashion can be found, but the media seem to focus principally on the effect that the Size Zero phenomenon has on young women. Media however, is generally quick to denounce celebrities endorsing fad diets, including popstars who describe girls who are not under a peer pressurized size, a "social suicide".

Men's body image is a topic of increasing interest in both academic articles and in the popular press. Current research indicates many men wish to become more muscular than they currently perceive themselves to be, often desiring up to 26 pounds of additional muscle mass. According to the study, western men desire muscle mass over that of Asian men by as much as 30 pounds. The desire for additional muscle has been linked to many men's concepts about masculinity. A variety of research has indicated a relationship between men's endorsement of traditionally masculine ideas and characteristics, and his desire for additional muscle. Some research has suggested this relationship between muscle and masculinity may begin early in life, as boys' action figures are often depicted as super-muscular, often beyond the actual limits of human physiology.

Studies have found that females tend to think more about their body shape and endorse thinner figures than men even into old age. When female undergraduates were exposed to depictions of thin women their body satisfaction decreased, but rose when exposed to larger models.

Measurement

Body image is often measured by asking the subject to rate their current and ideal body shape using a series of depictions. The difference between these two values is the measure of body dissatisfaction.

Monteath and McCabe found that 44% of women express negative feelings about both individual body parts and their bodies as a whole. Psychology Today found that 56% of the women and about 40% of the men who responded to their survey in 1997 were dissatisfied with their overall appearance.

Body image and weight

The desire to lose weight is highly correlated with poor body image, with more women than men wanting to lose weight. Kashubeck-West et al. reported that when considering only men and women who desire to lose weight, sex differences in body image disappear.

These figures do not, however, distinguish between people at a low or healthy weight and those who are in fact overweight, i.e., between those whose self-perception as overweight is incorrect and those whose perception of overweight is correct. Post-1997 studies indicate that around 64% of American adults are overweight, such that if the 56%/40% female/male dissatisfaction rates in the Psychology Today study have held steady since its release, those dissatisfaction rates are if anything disproportionately low: Although some individuals continue to believe themselves to be overweight when they are not, those persons are now outnumbered by persons who might be expected to be dissatisfied with their body but are not. In turn, although social pressure to lose weight has adverse effects on some individuals who do not need to lose weight, those adverse effects are outweighed by that social pressure's positive effect on the overall population, without which the recent increases in obesity and associated health and social problems (described in both popular and academic parlance as an "obesity epidemic") would be even more severe than they already are.

Media impact on body image

Many commentators regard the emphasis in the media and in the fashion industry on thinness and on an ideal female body shape and size as being psychologically detrimental to the well-being of many young women, and on their self-image which also gives rise to excessive dieting and/or exercise, and to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Sociocultural studies highlight the role of cultural factors in the incidence of anorexia nervosa in women, such as the promotion of thinness as the ideal female form in Western industrialized nations, particularly through the media. A recent epidemiological study of 989,871 Swedish residents indicated that gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status were highly correlated with the chance of developing anorexia nervosa, and women with non-European parents were among the least likely to be diagnosed, while women in wealthy, ethnic Swedish families were most at risk.

A study by Garner and Garfinkel demonstrated that those in professions where there is a particular social pressure to be thin (such as models and dancers) were much more likely to develop anorexia during their career, and further research suggests that those with anorexia have much higher contact with cultural sources that promote weight-loss.

Although anorexia nervosa is usually associated with Western cultures, exposure to Western media is thought to have led to an increase in cases in non-Western countries. But other cultures may not display the same worries about becoming fat as those in the West, and instead may emphasise other common features.

However, other researchers have contested the claims of the media effects paradigm. An article by Christopher Ferguson, Benjamin Winegard, and Bo Winegard, for example, argues that peer effects are much more likely to cause body dissatisfaction than media effects, and that media effects have been overemphasized . It also argues that one must be careful about making the leap from arguing that certain environmental conditions might cause body dissatisfaction to the claim that those conditions can cause diagnosable eating disorders, especially severe eating disorders like Anorexia Nervosa.

See also

Beauty

Body dysmorphic disorder

Body schema

Body shape

Female body shape

Figure rating scale

Physical attractiveness

Self image

Self (psychology)

Sex in advertising

Sexual objectification

Feminist perspectives on eating disorders

Anorexia nervosa

Bulimia nervosa

Footnotes

Sources

Blakeslee, S. "Out-of-Body Experience? Your Brain is to Blame." New York Times, October 3, 2006.

Debra L. Gimlin, Body Work: Beauty and Self Image in American Culture (University of California Press, 2002) ISBN 0520228561

Grogan, Sarah. Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children.

Melzack, R. “Phantom Limbs.” Scientific American, Secret of the Senses. 2006: 53-59.

Ramachandran, V.S. A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness. New York: Pearson Education, 2004.

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Sherrington, C. S. The Integrated Action of the Nervous System. C Scribner's Sons, 1906.

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:Body shape Category:Self Category:Human appearance Category:Sexualization Category:History of psychiatry Category:psychoanalysis

de:Körperschema fr:Image du corps pt:Imagem corporal simple:Body image fi:Ruumiinkuva sv:Kroppsuppfattning tl:Pananaw sa anyo ng katawan vi:Tự cảm nhận ngoại hình cơ thể zh:身體意象

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Tyra Banks
birth name	Tyra Lynne Banks
birth date	December 04, 1973
birth place
occupation	Model ActressTalk show host
height
haircolor	Dark Brown
eyecolor	Brown
measurements	34D-24-35½
years active	1991–present
website	Tyra Banks web site
agency	IMG Models
salary	$23 million (2008) }}

Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973) is an American supermodel, media personality, actress, occasional singer, and businesswoman. She first became famous as a model in Paris, Milan, London, Tokyo, and New York, but television appearances were her commercial breakthrough. Banks is the creator and host of the UPN/The CW reality television show America's Next Top Model, co-creator of True Beauty, and host of her own talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

Early life

Tyra Banks was born in Inglewood, California, the daughter of Carolyn (née London), a medical photographer, and Donald Banks, a computer consultant. The couple divorced in 1980, when Banks was 6 years old. However, the relationship between her parents, and between her and her brother Devin Banks (born 1968), stayed friendly. Later, Carolyn married Clifford Johnson; she now goes by Carolyn London-Johnson. Banks attended John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles. She was accepted by USC and UCLA but declined to attend, instead pursuing a career in modeling.

Career

Modeling

Banks began modeling in the 11th grade. She later went to Paris, France to do some runway modeling. Within Banks' first week in Paris, she was booked for twenty-five shows. She has done extensive print and/or runway work for fashion/advertising giants, such as Anna Sui, CoverGirl, Bill Blass, Chanel, Victoria's Secret, and Yves Saint Laurent. She has appeared on the covers of high-fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Elle.

Banks was the first African American woman on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In 1997, she received the VH1 award for Supermodel of the Year. That same year, she became the first-ever African American chosen for the cover of the Victoria's Secret catalog.

In 1998, Banks authored a book entitled Tyra's Beauty, Inside and Out. The book was advertised as a resource for helping women to make the most out of their natural beauty.

Banks retired from modeling in May 2005 to concentrate on her television career. She walked the runway for the final time at the 2005 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

In 2010, Banks re-signed with her former modeling agency IMG Models.

Move into television and film

Banks's television career began on the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which she played lead character Will Smith's old friend Jackie Ames. She made seven appearances in the series. Other TV credits include Felicity, MADtv, Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out (in which she was featured as a special guest host and team captain) and The Price Is Right (guest-starring as a "Barker's Beauty"). She also appeared as a guest in the animated talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode entitled "Chinatown."

Tyra Banks started her own production company Bankable Productions, which produced The Tyra Banks Show, America's Next Top Model, and the 2008 movie The Clique.

Currently, Banks can be seen on television as the hostess, judge and executive producer of The CW Television Network show America's Next Top Model. In addition, she hosted The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005, and ran until May 28, 2010.

In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show. In late-January 2008, Banks got the go-ahead from The CW Television Network to start work on a new reality television series based on fashion magazines called Stylista. The show premiered on October 22, 2008.

In 2009, she was honored by Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) with the Excellence in Media Award.

Banks's first big screen role came in 1994, when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning. She then co-starred with Lindsay Lohan in the Disney film Life-Size, playing a doll named Eve who comes to life and has to learn how to live in the real world. Other notable roles include Love Stinks (1999), Love & Basketball (2000), Coyote Ugly (2000) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002). She and Miley Cyrus poke fun at the excesses of the Hollywood lifestyle with a battle over a pair of shoes in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009).

Banks appeared in the fourth episode of the third season of Gossip Girl playing Ursula Nyquist, a larger-than-life actress who works with Serena.

Music

Banks has appeared in several music videos, including Michael Jackson's "Black or White", Tina Turner's "Love Thing", Mobb Deep's "Trife Life", George Michael's "Too Funky" (with fellow supermodel Linda Evangelista) and Lionel Richie's "Don't Wanna Lose You". In 2004, she recorded her first single, "Shake Ya Body," which had a music video featuring the final six contestants on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 2. The video was world-premiered on UPN, but the single turned out to be a failure. On America's Next Top Model, Cycle 2 Banks said, "Singing has been a passion of mine for a long, long time...six years on the down low - been ducking in and out of studios cutting tracks." Later, on her talk show, she said, "I can't believe I wasted six years of doing something that I didn't finish...I was almost able to release my album T.Y.R.A., but since my music career hit rock bottom, I quit."

Banks released a single with NBA player Kobe Bryant, entitled "K.O.B.E.," which was performed on NBA TV. She also has a single on the soundtrack to Disney Channel's Original Movie Life-Size called "Be A Star."

Books

Banks announced in May 2010 that she would be writing a novel, called Modelland, loosely based on her own modelling experience. Scheduled to be released in September 2011, it is the first of a planned three-part series. On an interview with Good Morning America, Banks stated that Modelland is the story of four girls who are accepted into an "exclusive" modelling school in the world of Modelland.

''Love Stinks Love & BasketballHalloween: ResurrectionMr. WoodcockTropic ThunderHannah Montana: The MovieMADtvAmerica's Next Top ModelAmerican DreamsThe Tyra Banks ShowGossip Girl (TV series)

colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;"	Film
		! Film	! Role	! Notes
1995	Higher Learning	Deja
1999	|	Holly Garnett
rowspan=3	2000	|	Kyra Kessler
Life-Size	Eve Doll
Coyote Ugly (film)	Coyote Ugly	Zoë
rowspan=2	2002	|	Nora Winston
Eight Crazy Nights	Victoria's Secret Gown
2007	|	Herself	Cameo
2008	|	Herself	Cameo
2009	|	Herself in Women's Shoe Department	Cameo
colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;">Television
! Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
1993	The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air	Jackie Ames	*Where There's a Will, There's a Way: Part 1	*All Guts, No Glory	*Father of the Year	*Blood Is Thicker Than Mud	*Fresh Prince After Dark	*Take My Cousin... Please	*You've Got to Be a Football Hero
rowspan=2	1999		Jane Scott	*A Good Egg	*Kissing Mr. Covington	*One Ball, Two Strikes
Just Shoot Me!	Herself	*Nina Sees Red: Part 1	*Nina Sees Red: Part 2
2000	|	Katisha Latisha Parisha Farisha Johnson	TV series	*Episode #5.17	*Episode #5.25
2003–present	|	Host	Reality TV series created, judged and hosted by Banks
rowspan=2	2004	|	Carolyn Gill	TV series	*Chasing the Past
All of Us	Roni	*O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2005–2010	|	Host	Talk show
2009	Gossip Girl||	Ursula Nyquist	TV series,season 3	*Dan de Fleurette

Further education

In 2011, Banks enrolled in the Owner/President Management Program (OPM) at the Harvard Business School.

Philanthropy

In 1999, Tyra Banks established the TZONE program, which aimed at leadership and life skills development. The program was created for the primarily disadvantaged teen girls in the greater Los Angeles area, and involves sending teens to a week-long overnight camp outside of LA, where Tyra personally lived among and bonded with the campers.

In 2005, TZONE transformed from a camp into a public charity, the Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation, with a mission which honors TZONE's camp origins, and seeks to create a larger “sisterhood” among girls and young women. It makes grants to grassroot organizations, and supports organizations that serve women and girls ages 13–35.

References

External links

The Tyra Banks Show website

The New York Times Profile/Interview

Category:1973 births Category:African American film actors Category:African American models Category:African American female models Category:African American female singers Category:African American television personalities Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople Category:American female models Category:American game show hosts Category:American television producers Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Models from California Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:People from the Greater Los Angeles Area Category:GLAAD Media Awards winners

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