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How many times have you compared yourself to your favorite TikTokkers and Instagrammers? And how many times have you looked in the mirror and said to yourself, “You could be so happy… if only you were five pounds lighter”? If you’ve ever said this to yourself, or something similar, you may have a negative body image.
Many women (and men too) worry about their body image. These concerns are often focused on weight, hair, skin, or the shape or size of a body part. Due to the influence of society, social media and cultural views, they have come to think that the body part is not ‘normal’ or different. And that has a negative effect on how someone sees his or her own body.
Constantly confronted with images of others – who do look good according to popular standards – can make you feel uncomfortable in your own body. When this happens, there is a negative body image, which can lead to anxiety, insecurity and deteriorated mental health. And not only that: it can also affect your relationship and sex life, according to new research.
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Body image and relationships
Researchers from Griffith University (Australia) wanted to know how body image affects satisfaction with relationships and sex life. Especially because it is thought that people with low body image are often less satisfied with their relationships, they decided to investigate this. Are people with a negative body image actually less satisfied with their relationships?
To test it, the researchers conducted two experiments; one with 197 heterosexual couples and a second with 98 couples. All these couples were asked various body image questions by the researchers about how attractive they find their own body and that of their partner.
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Negative body image, less satisfied
The results show that a negative body image also indirectly has a negative impact on the relationship and sex life. Because the less attractive women and men find themselves, the less they believe that their partner finds them attractive. But women who do not find their bodies attractive – and think their partner shares that opinion – are also less satisfied with their relationship, while men do not have this ‘problem’.
According to the study, women are less satisfied with their relationship because they think their partner is unhappy with their body. For women, negative body image therefore indirectly affects how satisfied they are with their relationship and sex life. This is not the case with men. For men, how their partners think about their bodies does not affect how satisfied they are with the relationship. For men it is more important how attractive they find their partner .
“Together, these results suggest that women’s attraction to their partner may be less important to their relationship and sex life than how they feel about their own bodies,” the researchers told PsyPost . “For men, however, attraction to their partner is central to how satisfied they are with the relationship and sex life.”
Related research has recently shown that women misjudge men’s preferences , which may partly explain the gender difference.
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