A new study on 15000 people says that women aged between 19 & 24 years were prone to being unhappy with their bodies. But they were much more content with how they looked when they reached 60. These results are also consistent with theoretical work suggesting that women place less importance on evaluating the appearance of their bodies as they age.
Women also face the challenge of the Rapidly evolving beauty ideals – bombarded through mainstream movies & social media (ie, earlier models were slender, now they are toned and fit).
Similarly, men suffered a dip in self-confidence between 29 and 34 years old, and between 44 and 49. But their self-esteem began to rise as they approached their 60th birthday and continued to increase afterwards.
In a different older study, researchers asked 15,264 people aged between 18 and 94 to rate how happy they were with their body image during the six-year period between 2010 and 2015. Satisfaction was rated on a scale from one to seven. The average rating for women across all age groups was 4.052, while for men it was 4.413.
Finally, men, relative to women, consistently displayed higher levels of body satisfaction across the lifespan. Why?
Reference:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144521000966
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
