Discuss about The Relationship of Body Image.
The behavioral theories and psychological as well as psychosocial theories play a very important role in humans’ lives. Everyone needs to understand that the thoughts of people can be easily analyzed through their behavior. People tend to change their behavior when their heads are not clear. Any kind of physical activity or exercise plays a very important role in building a human mind strong. The heavy weight or bad body type should not affect people mentally because it leads to many diseases, including anxiety, depression, anger, fear etc. and recovering from such problems can be a cumbersome process. Body image and weight status have an impact on the thinking process of an individual and the way one perceives his body depends upon the type of attitude one carry in his life. So, it is important for the parents, teachers, and friends to help such people to stay positive about their bodies. Peers generally start to bully children which don’t bring out good results. So, this literature review will focus on a few behavioral aspects.
This literature review talks about the body image which is considered to be a multidimensional figure and which creates an impact on the psychology of human beings through their whole life. Many individuals, including men and women are dissatisfied from their bodies and are not very happy in their skin and it makes them less confident. The aim of this literature review is to analyze the perceptions of adolescents about their weights and body image and how does it impact them. This has become a major concern among adolescents and it has been affecting them quite deeply and they are facing emotional and mental stability due to changes in their physical appearance (Yin & Seng, 2010).
The authors say that individuals at their adolescent age have to face many physical changes and the height and weight develop. This is the age when the puberty starts and other characteristics, including change in voice, growth of hair starts to develop. At this age, individuals being to develop rational thinking and are able to think about broader possibilities. They initiate the abstract thinking process.
The understanding of body image and weight status of people if developed by experiences and such experiences are with friends, parents, teachers etc. The body has a specific physical appearance, different shape and size. Such an image is affected by the kind of responses one gets from the people who matter to such person (Sanchez-Villegas & Martinez, 2001). Body image and weight status can influence the thinking of an individual and the way one perceives his body depends upon the attitude one carry in his life. The authors say that the behavior of such individuals depends upon how their body is or how much weight do they carry. Generally, body image is one’s perception towards one’s own body and it is developed during a particular age during which many people have influenced the individuals mentally by commenting on their body size and shape. The physical attributes of people matter to them mostly during teenage and later they tend to focus more on developing their morals and focus on career rather than impressing people. So, authors in this article study the importance of physical appearance during adolescence. People have become internet savvy and post pictures on social networking sites every now and then to get them accepted by the general public (AL-Otaibi, et al., 2013).
The authors of this article explain that body image is the main source which has a key role in making the individuals possesses eating problems. We all develop a mental image of our body and such image is being affected by the opinion of others. It depends upon the people how they perceive such opinions. However, talking about collective opinion, it affects more deeply than individual opinion. Not having a perfect body can manifest different changes in varied aspects, for example, we get to see behavioral changes. The bad body image may lead a person to many problems and he may start to feel depressed and isolated. So, at the age of adolescent, it is very important for parents to help the children gain self confidence and be happy in their own skin (Wilson, et al., 2013).
In a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, it was reported that people who have good body shape tend to indulge in more physical activities to keep their body in shape and minimum 15 minutes every day, however, heavy weight people do not indulge in more physical activities.
Women concerned about their body image and weight status more than men. The college going women tends to participate in maintaining their body shapes and in a survey, 61% of women who are studying in college are more participative in the gym to maintain their body shapes. This report provides that a woman can develop serious mental problems when they are opinionated about their weights and body shapes. The frequency of developing serious health problems is high among women than men (Viswanathan & Viswanathan, 2011). Body consciousness makes the individuals think more about their physical appearance rather than their internal features. Such focus on physical appearance and consciousness opens into 3 aspects:
Women tend to analyze their bodies more than men, especially during their teenage.
This literature review talks about the psychological effects of heavy weight on people and how it can affect behavioral and psychological outcomes. Every individual has different aims in life. Weight stigma is attached to many people who affect their daily life behavior. This takes into consideration the verbal and non-verbal behavior. He believed that non-verbal behavior of a human being depicts numerous things about him. The human beings work in harmony and as a whole. People stop being creatively active and maintain a blockage in their heads and that gets attached to them through their whole life. There are only a few people who get their self-confidence back. So, they need to adopt various strategies to bring the confidence out of them and make them creatively alive and more enthusiastic (Tomiyama, 2014).
The authors say that people are the best judge of themselves. There are many stages in one’s life. It starts from avoiding the physical activities to enjoy food. A person always tries to follow his own instincts which in return give him better results. However, there comes a stage when people are not able to see what others cans see. The stage of believing own intuition and instincts is somewhat a stage closer to self actualization which doesn’t really come during teenage or even early years if adulthood (Thorsteinsson & Breadsell, 2016).
It is important to analyze the needs of the people and what will help them grow. The close scrutiny of external and internal variables brings out the problems which can become helpful while counseling a person in choosing a way of life.
The author provides that physical exercise sometimes helps people to cure the problems with which humans are dealing and which are basically related to their minds. Performance of physical activity helps to enter the mind of beings so that with what they are facing can be brought out and the person then can be easily brought out of the dilemma. The problems such as anxiety, depression are treated by using this approach because it helps to know various experiences faced by human brains and what are the negative and positive effects of such experiences (Hunger, et al., 2015). It is believed that psyche consists of a number of distinct but connecting systems. The three important systems were ego, the personal unconscious and the collective one. The aspect of ego is an active aspect and it represents the memories, thoughts and the emotions. The personal unconscious, basically stores the forgotten memory which is temporary in nature. This includes a complex collection of thoughts and emotions. Coming to collective conscious, this is basically shared with the people surrounding the environment. This includes the old memories, including past and ancestors. These three components are important to understand the human psyche. All the above aspects can be improved by meditation and physical exercise and many health problems and problems related to mind can be cured. This therapy is used to deal with mental health issues which are being faced by people around the whole globe (Thaxton, 2016).
The author says that there are many theories related to human mind and one of it is a cognitive theory and which has been used to deal with the major problem of depression and this has become a very common problem in this era. During this therapy the mentor asks the clients to question the thoughts which are not aligned with their functional thoughts and interpret the thoughts which are coming to their heads and how such thoughts can be replaced by bringing more productive thoughts in place of them. He believed that sometimes a person fails to respond properly to the thoughts which upset him and how the reaction is controlled is done by this therapy. He said that when the person’s mind is shadowed only by negative thoughts, he tends to get inclined towards depression (Vartanian, 2008).
This literature review provides for how BMI impacts thinking of individuals. It says that negatively taking your body type can bring a continuous trail of negative thoughts, negative self-schemes and problems in logical thinking (Hudson, 2008). The main focus of this literature review is about the replacement of irrational thoughts with the rational ones. The irrational thoughts only increase the load on the brain, which tends to decrease its productivity. The person needs to eradicate the irrational beliefs because if he keeps following such beliefs he can go beyond the limits to make such beliefs come to reality which practically cannot pass through reality test. Hence, it can be said that the irrational beliefs only promote false actions (Kelly, 2013).
It is said by the author that we tend to hold certain assumptions about ourselves and some of them are very irrational due to which sometimes we react in a very inappropriate manner and do things which are unethical as well as morally and legally wrong. He said that one can throw light on his dysfunctional thoughts by talking to himself. The unwanted thoughts and behaviors can be done away with if the person himself tries to acknowledge such behaviors. The self-talk is very important if one wants to meet his inner self. By doing this, the inner battles can be resolved and modified to a better one (Team, 2012).
The physical exercise can be very helpful if a person doesn’t know how to get rid of negative thoughts and how positive thoughts can be brought it. The theorists are of the view that sometimes a person cannot see himself what the other person can see. One of the psychosocial theories includes eight stages of human development. These are: –
The children generally follow the path of their father. They put more emphasis on the dynamics of the human psyche rather than the structure of the psyche. They need to focus on the substance and not on the form.
The importance of physical activity given above has been proved to be beneficial for many people worldwide. The various models have helped people in knowing how and what pattern of reaction they give during certain ages and what are the aspects of mind which cannot be observed by a layman and there are many latent layers behind it.
This article explains the importance of physical activities among lives of young women. The young women concentrate more on exercise to improve their looks. During young times, people stay keener about their looks so to improve it they work hard to look better. The authors provide that adolescence is the age where looks matter more than the internal beauty. The external looks of women are developed during a particular age during which many people have influenced the individuals mentally by commenting on their body size and shape. Women stay conscious more about their looks than the career at this age (O’Dougherty, et al., 2009).
According to a survey, the people who register at gym more are mostly youngsters. The college students are more likely to indulge in physical exercise at gym than the old people who engage themselves in other physical activities like walking, jogging etc.
Conclusion
It is important to keep stay fit and healthy. However, it is not right to give opinion to others about their size and weight because we don’t know what other people might think or how they will perceive such opinions. It has been said that the collective opinion plays a very important role in people’s lives because many people are of the view that collective opinion is relevant. So, to help people, especially children from carrying trauma every day about their body image, it is important to help them by suggesting them about the benefits of physical activities and meditation. The impact of BMI has been explained above by explaining the various stages in human life. The psychological theories impact the development of human mind along with growth of human body. Young age is the age where it is very easy to change human mind and it is important to give them motivation to bring the best out of them.
References
AL-Otaibi, H., Nassef, S. & Raouf, T., 2013. Body Shape Dissatisfaction, Weight Status and Physical Activity among a Sample University Students in Saudi Arabia, Available at: https://file.scirp.org/pdf/FNS_2013060514562373.pdf
Hudson, C., 2008. The relationship of body image, body mass index and self-esteem to eating attitudes in a normal sample, Available at: https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/1534/thesis_fulltext.pdf;jsessionid=4D5BF3B81501106245361776117DABDC?sequence=1
Hunger, J., Major, B., Blodorn, A. & Miller, C., 2015. Weighed Down by Stigma: How Weight-Based Social Identity Threat Contributes to Weight Gain and Poor Health, Available at: https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/major/brenda/docs/Hunger%20et%20al.%20(2015).pdf
Kelly, L., 2013. The relationship between emotional eating, depression and body mass, Available at: https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-12022013-121153/unrestricted/LoranKellyMastersThesis120213.pdf
O’Dougherty, M. et al., 2009. Purposeful exercise and lifestyle physical activity in the lives of young adult women: Findings from a diary study. PMC Journal, December, 49(8), p. 642–661.
Sanchez-Villegas, A. & Martinez, A., 2001. Perception of body image as indicator of weight status in the European Union, Available at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.654.604&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Team, N., 2012. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Skills Training Workbook, Available at: https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/_uploads/documents/help-for-adults/cbt-workshop-booklet_web.pdf
Thaxton, T., 2016. The influence of anticipated weight stigma and weight bias internalization on eating, exercise, and quality of life among obese women, Available at: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/76702/Influence_of_Stigma_on_Obese_TylerThaxton.pdf?sequence=1
Thorsteinsson, E. & Breadsell, D., 2016. The effect of weight controllability beliefs on prejudice and self-efficacy, Available at: https://peerj.com/articles/1764.pdf
Tomiyama, A., 2014. Weight stigma is stressful. A review of evidence for the Cyclic Obesity/Weight-Based Stigma model: University of California, Available at: https://www.dishlab.org/pubs/Tomiyama%20COBWEBS.pdf
Vartanian, L., 2008. Effects of Weight Stigma on Exercise Motivation and Behavior. Journal of Health Psychology, pp. 1-8.
Viswanathan, H. & Viswanathan, B., 2011. Is Accurate Perception of Body Image Associated with Appropriate Weight-Control Behavior among Adolescents of the Seychelles. Journal of Obesity, pp. 1-8.
Vivyan, C., 2009. An Introductory Self-Help Course in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Available at: https://www.dbtselfhelp.com/selfhelpcourse.pdf
Wilson, M., Viswanathan, B., Rousson, V. & Bovet, P., 2013. Weight Status, Body Image and Bullying among Adolescents in the Seychelles. International Journal of Environ. Res. Public Health, Volume 10, pp. 1763-1774.
Yin, T. & Seng, Y., 2010. Weight Status, Body Image Perception and Physical Activity of Malay Housewives, Available at: https://www.ucsiuniversity.edu.my/cervie/pdf/ijasa/paperBio.pdf
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