Body image: Who do we compare ourselves to?

In February, Silver & Grace posted a body image survey. The number of respondents was heart warming, and also pointed to how concerned we are about how view our bodies. So far we have answered the following questions:

Do we love our bodies?
Are we willing to go under the knife?
How do we view our body parts?

Today we answer this question:

Who do we compare ourselves to?

Up until this point in the survey, I have been concerned with how hard we are on ourselves. I was delighted, therefore, to find we are more realistic when it comes to who we compare ourselves to.

Here are the responses in order of highest to lowest number selections:

• I compare myself to people my age
• I don’t compare myself to anyone
• I compare myself to younger people
• I compare myself to media images

Ideally, I don’t compare myself to anyone, should be the top selection. But this is not the least bit realistic. If nothing else, out of sheer curiosity we compare ourselves to others.

I tend to have a foot in the I compare myself to others camp and the I don’t compare myself to anyone camp.

Allow me to explain.

The age guessing game

My comparison generally occurs as a sidebar to another exercise, which is people watching. I love people watching. And while I am doing so, I try to guess people’s ages. It’s a game a totally suck at, by the way.

Sometimes, I actually learn the age of someone I was involving in my secret game. And sometimes this leads to a very unpleasant surprise! It goes like this:

“Huh, she has to be at least 55 to 60, because she looks 10 to 15 years older than me.”

Turns out the person is 45.

“What? That’s two years younger than me! Holy crumpets, do I look that old? Do people look at me and think that I am pushing 60?”

Then I rush home, look in a mirror, and breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t mystically age 15 years while I was out. And I conjecture that the woman smokes or was a heavy tanning bed user, which explains all the wrinkles. Then I’m happy again.

It does point out that at some level I am concerned about what age people perceive me to be. Silly, eh? Vanity, thy name is Eliza.

Oh, those lovely actresses

Not surprisingly, the age group who most compared themselves to media images was the Under 40 group. And I am not suggesting these ladies are more concerned about looking like celebrities, rather, we are inundated with youthful media images.

At forty-seven, there is hardly any point in me comparing myself to media images. The few my age who grace the covers of magazines are air brushed and botoxed to look younger. Since I am neither air brushed nor botoxed, it would be like comparing apples and oranges. At least the Under 40 group has a better chances of comparing apples to apples.

Some female celebrities to jump out at me as beautiful older women:

• Katherine Hepburn <- yes, I know she is no longer with us, but to me she is the epitome of natural beauty
• Judy Dench
• Helen Mirren

And I give extra kudos to these two actresses:

Meryl Streep for the scene in the Devil Wears Prada where she doesn’t have an ounze of make up on. And Diane Keaton for insisting on having her own near naked body filmed in Something’s Gotta Give.

But other than, it is hard to find female celebrities in our age group who actually look like they are in our age group.

Mary Tyler Moore and Barbara Walters, for example, are not women I never want to compare myself to.

We are who we are

Thankfully, we are not comparing ourselves to them. We seem to be quite happy simply looking in the mirror, or like me, doing the occasional reality check against women our age.

Have your say:

If you were to compare yourself to a media image, who would you most like to emulate and why?

Upcoming body image posts:

April 28 – Are we satisfied with our weight?
May 5 – Are we looking forward to aging?

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