Beauty Demands

The third edition of Body Image is out this month.  This edition presents updated research literature, and considers what we know about body image in men, women, and children in the twenty-first century. The 2010s have seen a significant increase in cosmetic surgery, and over 20 million cosmetic procedures are now performed worldwide each year, mostly on women. Incidence of anabolic steroid use is increasing worldwide, and recent studies suggest that about 2.4% of Australian male adolescents and 6% of US adolescent boys use steroids to bulk up muscle mass in spite of serious health risks. Diet pills are also widely available on the internet and are used by both men and women to reduce body fat levels. Site enhancement oils such as synthol are also being used more frequently to create the appearance of trained muscle, and Botox to reduce facial wrinkles. Clearly there are important issues here that require understanding. Since the second edition of this book in 2008, more

The 2016 Girls’ Attitudes survey , out this week highlights – again – the importance of body image, body confidence, and generally how much appearance matters for young women in the UK today. Claims that ‘it’s the inside that counts’, or ‘beauty is only skin deep’ are hard to maintain in the face of such overwhelming statistics. You might send your 9 year old daughter off to school (as I do every day) telling her that you can find something beautiful in every face (which you can) and that kindness matters most of all (which it does), but she knows, as all girls know, that beauty matters too. A few of the headline statements, taken from page 3 of the report, remind us just how much it matters: ·          “47% of girls aged 11-21 say the way they look holds them back” ·          “From as young as seven, girls say they feel embarrassed and ashamed of how they look” ·          “Fear of their bodies being criticised holds them back from doing everyday things they’d like to d