Body Image Research

Researching Body Image in Young Adulthood

Miller and Halberstadt (2005)

Task One: Introduction

In Westernised cultures, it has been proven with numerous studies that women more than men are troubled with their body image and are obsessed with the ideal of being thin. According to Miller and Halberstadt (2005), previous studies surrounding body image suggested that women were obsessed with the idea of losing weight and the ‘thin’ ideal and needed to make changes in order to accept their figure. In the last decade, there has only been one study published previously showing the shortage of research in New Zealand that focuses specifically on body image. This single study stated that nearly three-quarters of adolescent girls surveyed wished to be thinner. Generally, the media is said to be responsible for depicting ‘expected’ appearances of men and women and research indicates that media exposure to female models who are the ideal thinness has a negative effect upon young women and contributes to their body dissatisfaction. The purpose of the current study was to collect current normative data using young New Zealand adults as the sample and extends previous research on the topic. The hypothesis of the study was there would be marked gender differences concerning body image when looking at overseas research that had previously proved this to be evident. (206 words)

Task Two: Method

Task 2 a . The participants were 181 students of the University of Otago, including 62 males and 119 females. Students were required to participate as part of a first year psychology research requirement or were offered $10 in return for participating. The age range of the participants was 17 to 30 years. The participant’s average height, average weight...

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...re us resulting in young people feeling that they do not meet the rest of society’s standards. Society has created this issue through providing unrealistic or unhealthy ideals that have now become the ‘norm’. One way to decrease the overall effects of negative body images is to present natural images of men and women in the media using a variety of different shapes and sizes instead of using one representation of how a person should look.

Although, these individual research findings of one study cannot be applicable to the other. In general terms the society’s in which these studies were conducted may be similar but the views upon the issue could be different due to factors such as culture. To further this research it would be ideal to conduct these studies in the opposite country and then comparing the results and studies would be easier and useful. (717 words)