Do you believe body image has changed over the years? If so how?

Question

can u please be specific it for coursework thank you

Answer 1

Yes, and easily so.

You first need to understand that appearance (and what is defined as beautiful or sexually attractive) is socially defined - meaning, there's very little inherently genetic within us that determines what we find beautiful; largely beauty is defined by where we live in, the times, the society, and mass media.

I think you're probably focusing on Western society, because some Eastern countries might not apply to what I'm about to say.

If you examine artwork painted a thousand years ago or more, you will see that when women are painted in the nude they look just as women do now under their clothes - they have paunchy bellies, pale or blotchy skin, uneven and frizzy hair. There's no "touching up", there is no insane standard of beauty, their waistlines aren't whittled into perfect hour glasses.

So it is easy to understand that body image for women was different then - there were little to no cultural expectations or mass media images of what a woman looked like. A typical woman a thousand years ago was probably more concerned about surviving through the winter and being in service to her husband and bearing children; there was little emphasis on personal beauty. Besides, back then illness, rotten teeth, bad skin and other problems were inherent because of how poor diet and lifestyle was.

As far as the middle ages or earlier, women were seen as healthier if they were stouter. They would bear healthy children, be able to work around the house, etc. It was seen as a desirable quality for a woman to have wide child bearing hips and some flesh on her body. Even among royalty it was not unknown for princesses or queens to be chubby and sometimes even hefty - after all they had access to sweets, treats, endless banquets and meals.

Until about the 1800's, I don't think there was a mass pressure for women to alter their bodies to fit a skewed perception. This was when those atrocious corsets, breast-revealing dresses and subservient attitude to men was especially instilled in women. Women were still seen as inferior to men, and now appearance played a big role in courtship and romance.

Women were seen as "weak" and frail and often dieted and fasted and binded their waists with corsets to fit the "ideal woman's" appearance, the sort of woman that was seen as marriable. It was seen as terrible to be an unmarried woman and by the time you were in your late twenties you were pretty much an old lady and spinster and would never marry. Therefore the pressure to look beautiful and thin and weak and "needy" of a man went through the roof.

Body image swayed back and forth since then but the ideal woman typically got thinner and thinner. By the 1920's flappers became popular - they were thin women in slinky little dresses with short, flippant hair. Something called "burlesque" became popular, which was almost an upscale strip club meets theater, and women would undress to provocative music and dancing. Film became popular - and suddenly actresses were on screen and women could see how beautiful some women out there are - how fine their hair is, how nice their skin is.

Body image and self perception probably took a huge downturn by the introduction of film and then women's magazines a few decades later. While many might consider it empowering, the pages of glamorous fashion filled with thin women looking beautiful as can be was probably affecting many women's body image.

Crazy diets and weight loss schemes are traced back hundreds of years but by the 1900's it became much more popular. Ladies' magazines - even doctors - would prescribe unusual fasts or methods like drinking vinegar to aide weight loss.

Even so, obesity was rare back then and people were more active, and women in film weren't as thin as they are now, nor were the women in fashion as thin. So women could still sometimes relate body-wise to the people they saw in mass media.

I think when you take a look at modern society, where we are inactive and we eat terrible diets and are too busy to take care of ourselves, our mass media almost paints a fake picture of society - everyone is thin, very fit, smiling and dressed in expensive, beautiful clothes. In reality 90% of the population or more in our country is overweight or worse, dressed in jeans or sweats, and works out rarely if ever and eats a terrible diet.

We probably have the biggest gap now between what is perceived as s**y and what is real - take a look at any fashion magazine and then look at your own body, even. I am sure that it causes nothing but feelings of either inferiority or wishful thinking. I think we've become very warped and obsessed with idealism and looking "perfect", but we have nobody to blame but ourselves because in the end we're the ones that define what's perfect.

Body image clearly was healthier before mass media was introduced, and it's only getting worse because people are becoming more and more obsessed with looking as thin as the anorexic twigs in fashion magazines, which is almost impossible to do and remain healthy, not to mention impossible as it is in our modern society of fast food and inactivity. Eating disorders are at an all time high, and I personally estimate that 1 in 4 women (or more!) has had a brush with or suffers from disordered eating, whether it is emotional eating, binge eating, vomiting food or starving herself to "maintain weight".

Answer 2

yeah well definitely body image has changed over tym... earlier ppl used 2 be simple... bt today 3 out of 5 ppl r diet concious... i mean today they wanna look perfect n beautiful... so many body products hve been launched n thnxx 2 ppl's craze 2 look good, they r easily sold... earlier ppl were conscious abt looks bt nt this much... today nt only girls even boys r very conscious abt their looks

Answer 3

yes because we have three classes to deal with now .

Before it was just male or female body image,but now we have the metrosexual body image also,which is a great thing.

Men are playing a major role in their body image now.

they are looking finer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 4

Body image changes just like styles for cars, hair styles , etc .It's like on a cycle, eventually it returns to the original style .