Why looking at this photo will make you feel better about your own wobbly bits! Six brave women bare all in a bid to improve their body image (and you'll never guess how old they are)
- There is a serious problem in the UK with negative body image
- It is estimated to affect about two-thirds of women
- Recent survey found 64 per cent were unhappy with their body’s size and shape
- Six brave women dared to bare all to see if the claims were true
There is something almost classical about this image. It invokes one of those wonderful Renaissance paintings that capture the voluptuousness and beauty of the female form in all its naked glory.
And yet, in this age of airbrushing, it’s the very fact we find this image so striking that speaks volumes about the self-loathing so depressingly widespread among women.
No wonder there is a serious problem in the UK with negative body image, which is estimated to affect about two-thirds of women. A recent survey found 64 per cent were unhappy with their body’s size and shape, and a government-funded study suggested 80 per cent of females over 40 were dissatisfied with their bodies.
Pictured (left to right), Susie Mason, 49, Rosamund Barnard, 26, Yvonne Iles, 68, Emma Donaldson, 47, Monica Czyzewska, 40, and Maria Madalena, 56
The consequences of this are also damaging to younger women’s self-esteem.
The truth is we are not used to seeing women like this, women as they really are — with wrinkles, the odd sag and bit of flab. Bodies with wobbly thighs and bottoms.
What are you thinking as you look at this picture? Are you horrified? Shocked? Well, keep looking, and you might begin to feel differently about your own body.
For a study last week suggested the more we look at other people’s naked bodies, the better we are likely to feel about our own.
Dr Keon West, at Goldsmiths, University of London, asked 850 people to fill in a questionnaire and found those who spent time naked were happier. More importantly, seeing other people naked was even more conducive to general well-being.
His findings tally with research I have done over the past few decades as a professor of psychology at Surrey University. Stripping off to feel better about your body may sound odd, but it does make sense.
When a woman stands unclothed in front of a mirror, she doesn’t see a lovely female form. She criticises it bit by bit: thighs, tummy, upper arms and bottom. She then does the same with her face.
Women do this all their lives, measuring themselves and finding themselves wanting. We are our own worst enemies.
And when we look at pictures of other women, we automatically do the same. Are their tummies wobbling? Are their boobs a bit saggy? The next step — what we psychologists call social comparison — is to see how each of our own features measure up to theirs. Do their tummies wobble more than mine? Are their thighs bigger?
With images like this — beautiful but without the Barbie-like quality of magazine shots — it’s likely we’ll decide we too are rather lovely. Even the most perfect have wrinkles or rolls of fat.
But the ‘perfect’ images we see every day in magazines and on billboards have created a false normal, an improbable standard against which we are constantly measuring ourselves, inevitably falling short.
Spend time looking at ‘normal’ women, and you’ll see most have bodies that are just fine — with bits that measure up well against others and bits that don’t.
Comedian Sandi Toksvig was recently awarded an honorary degree by our university. In her speech she told our girls they were young and beautiful, writes Professor Jane Ogden
I’m not advocating staring at people in communal changing rooms, but the more you jog with friends, swim or do aerobics, the more you’ll see ordinary bodies unclothed and the better you’ll feel — because you’ll have a broader perspective.
It is also possible to persuade women that glossy pictures give a skewed perspective.
During research into the effects that images in the media had on body satisfaction, I showed women pictures of thin models and overweight women.
After looking at the pictures of the skinny ones, they said they felt less happy with their own bodies, but were far happier after looking at the heavier women.
And when the secrets of airbrushing were explained in a lecture about unrealistic ideals of beauty, the women’s perception of their own bodies changed.
There are other factors to consider when it comes to our horror of nudity in Britain, including the weather.
When it comes to body image issues, I do think our dank climate may be partly to blame.
Look at Southern Europe, where warmer weather means it’s impractical to spend the whole time wrapped up. If you live in the South of France or Spain and near a beach, you will feel happy in a swimming costume, while we have only about two weeks a year to do so.
There are places, such as California, where many people have had plastic surgery and having a beautiful body is prized. Still, I’m not sure that has the same negative impact as airbrushing.
There are other reasons for poor body image: family and social pressures, and the innate drive women often have to be perfect.
Sadly, it seems many never grow to accept their appearance.
Last week, I gave a talk about body image to some retired professionals. A perfectly ordinary shaped woman in her 70s came up to me. ‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I’ve been fat all my life.’
Isn’t it tragic she has wasted decades thinking — wrongly — that she’s imperfect?
Good-looking people often seem to have happier lives, too. This is called the halo effect. We believe all good things go together.
In fact, a Polish study last year found that those who were confident in their looks were happier — a very different thing.
If we were always shown pictures like this uplifting group portrait, then we’d realise what’s normal.
We’d know that most of us have the bodies of mortals, not models — and we’d feel pretty good.
Comedian Sandi Toksvig was recently awarded an honorary degree by our university. In her speech she told our girls they were young and beautiful.
All women need to accept that they’re beautiful — and looking at pictures of other women unclothed might be a good start.
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