The Body Schema/Image is the experience of your body in the present moment—this includes seeing it as parts or as a whole—and your mental and emotional response to what you are seeing and/or experiencing. The body schema makes up the first part while the body image is the second. Both are flip sides of the coin we call embodiment or embodied consciousness.
The body image is both a static state and a dynamic trait. It is both stable and unstable over time because it is incredibly plastic and can fall prey to negative and positive influences from a variety of sources. The most common sources are mass media, friends, family, and lovers. Mothers appear to have the greatest influence on their daughters’ body images. These findings come from research using the Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image first proposed by Keery, Van Den Berg, & Thompson (2004) in their study of eating disturbances in teenage girls. Further research has replicated the validity of the Tripartite Influence Model as exemplified by a large study of White, Black, Latina, and Asian women (N=1,750) which found that its effects apply to these ethnic/cultural groups although with some minor variance (Burke et al., 2021). Familial influence, specifically from mothers and sisters, is now confirmed to impact the development of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in young women. One research study recruited 422 young Australian women to determine how appearance pressures and fat talk exhibited by mothers and sisters and mediational mechanisms (body comparisons and thin-ideal internalization) are associated with body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The researchers also explored differences in ratings of mother versus sister appearance pressures and fat talk. More appearance pressure and fat talk from mothers and sisters correlated with greater body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Furthermore, interpersonal pressures from mothers and sisters to improve physical appearance related to women’s likelihood of engaging in appearance comparisons and thin-ideal internalization. Both of which also positively relate to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Participants felt their mothers engaged in more appearance pressuring and fat talk than their sisters (Deeks, Prichard, & Kemps, 2023).
These findings expand the Tripartite Influence Model and reveal a new aspect to body image: relational body image. This is the idea that body image systematically varies by who the person is in relationship with at any given time (Waring & Kelly, 2020). Waring & Kelly’s theory hypothesizes that body image may vary—positive or negative—depending on the strength of shared characteristics between two people. They found in their qualitative study of 20 college women that body image experience varied by significant relationship. Those women who reported the greatest fluctuation were also the most vulnerable to negative body image influences. The most influential factors were people who were accepting and affirmative of the others’ body concerns, less preoccupied with their own bodies, and were of similar in body size (Waring & Kelly, 2023). Finally, participants reported significantly more influence/pressure from their mothers than their sisters, and mothers were perceived to exhibit greater fat talk than sisters.
But there is a shadow side to this relational aspect of body image. Sanchez & Kwang (2007) report that women are vulnerable to body image disturbance when they are not in a relationship or when in an insecure one. This is because as most heterosexual men place great emphasis on physical beauty and that most women experience great social pressures to find romantic partners. Consequently, many woman may link relationship achievement with their own sense of self-worth. This study showed that the degree of body shame experienced by women not in a love relationship increased along with the possibility of disordered eating to attempt to achieve greater physical attractiveness.
Closing Thoughts
There are several points that strike me in these studies and the notion of body image being relational in nature. The Tripartite Theory points to the major influences on body image and now newer studies are confirming that greater influence/pressures and fat talk from mothers and sisters are associated with greater body dissatisfaction and restricted eating behaviors. Second, the habit of body comparison with others and adherence to the thin-body ideal were found to have negative body image effects. Third, mothers and sisters contribute to young women’s quality of body image (Deeks, Prichard, & Kemps, 2023). These studies elaborate on previous findings to confirm that influences on body image are not only an intrapsychic phenomenon but an interpersonal one as well.
Paul Shane, Ph.D., LMT
Director, Academic Content
References
Burke, N., Schaefer, L., Karvay, Y., Bardone-Cone, A., Frederick, D., Schaumberg, K., Klump, K., Anderson, D., & Thompson, J. (2021). Does the tripartite influence model of body image and eating pathology function similarly across racial/ethnic groups of White, Black, Latina, and Asian women? Eating Behaviors 42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2021.101519.
Deek, M., Prichard, I., & Kemps, E. (2023). The mother-daughter-sister triad: The role of female family members predicting body image and eating behaviour in young women. Body Image 46, p. 336-346.
Keery, H., Van Den Berg, P., & Thompson, J. (2004). An evaluation of the Tripartite Influence Model of body dissatisfaction and eating disturbance with adolescent girls. Body Image 1(3), p. 237-251.
Sanchez, D. & Kwang, T. (2007). When the relationship becomes her: Revisiting women’s body concerns from a relationship contingency perspective. Psychology of Women Quarterly 31, p. 401-414.
Waring, S. & Kelley, A. (2020). Relational body image: Preliminary evidence that body image varies within a person from one specific relationship to another. Body Image 34, p. 221-232.
—– (2023). The whole is more than the sum of its parts: A qualitative investigation of body-dissatisfied college women’s experiences of relational body image. Body Image 46, p. 174-189.
Revised on 05-03-24.