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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Body Image: Do we love our bodies?

In February, Silver & Grace community members had an opportunity to complete a body image survey. The response was overwhelming. If you haven’t already read the introductory post, you can do so here.

Today’s post analyses the following survey question:

What is your gut reaction to this question – “Do you love your body?” Yes? or No?

I have to say, ladies, we are awfully hard on ourselves. 60% of the respondents said “no, they do not love their bodies”. As for the gentlemen respondents? 50% do not love their bodies, so they are equally as hard on themselves as we are.

I wasn’t willing to leave the numbers at that, so I drilled it down into age groups. I conjectured that perhaps the younger women love their bodies, and as we get older our love tapers off as our bodies age. Here is what I found:

• Under 40 years – 30% love their bodies
• 40 – 49 years – 45% love their bodies
• 50 – 59 years – 35% love their bodies
• 60 – 69 years – 60% love their bodies
• Over 70 years – 60% love their bodies

Turns out my hypothesis was wrong! It’s the older gals who love their bodies, not the younger ones.

My response to this survey question is “yes, I love my body”. I think the best way to describe my relationship to my body is similar to my relationship with my children as they were growing up. I loved them all the time, but there sure were times I did not like their behaviours.

I love my body. It’s strong and it’s flexible. It gets me places either at a walk or a run. It gives pleasure and receives pleasure.

But there sure are days I don’t like its behaviour. Like when it bloats up. Or develops red itchy rosacea. Or sends a shooting pain down my left hip.

These behaviours are always temporary conditions, so while I might get grumpy because at a particular moment I might not look or feel my best, I don’t dwell on it. It’s a case of this too shall pass. I know the foundation is strong.

This could explain why the majority of the older gals love their bodies. They have to come to accept the quirky behaviours of their bodies, and focus on loving what their bodies have accomplished over a lifetime.

But what of the under 40 crowd? In theory their bodies should be strong while undesirable behaviours should be few and far between. Or at this age, are they focusing more on what their bodies look like as opposed to what their bodies can do?

I also found it interesting that there was a dip in body love in the 50 to 59 crowd, then the love nearly doubles for the over 60 crowd. I think it is fairly safe to say that this is due to all the not so lovely changes associated with menopause in our fifties.

Going back to my parent and child analogy, it’s like having to deal with an extremely troublesome teenager. Menopause causes your body to act out and tests the outermost limits of your love. Then your teenager moves into her twenties, and its all so easy again. In your sixties, your body settles down and you can once again focus on what it can do, as opposed to what it cannot.

Well, all this analysis is one woman’s thoughts and opinions. I would love to hear how you interpret the results based on your own experiences. There are no right or wrong answers, so have fun with it.

And make sure you come back for the rest of the survey results. Here is the schedule:

March 31 – Are we willing to go under the knife?
April 7 – Are we sexy?
April 14 – How do we view our body parts?
April 21 – Who do we compare ourselves to?
April 28 – Are we satisfied with our weight?
May 5 – Are we looking forward to aging?

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Body Image: The survey results are in

In February, I put out a call to the Silver & Grace community to complete a survey on body image. The response was overwhelming.

Silver & Grace women told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends … and answers to the survey questions poured in. It just goes to show how important the topic of body image is to all of us.

The responses to each question asked will be analyzed over a series of articles. I know everyone is very curious as to how other people responded, so here is the posting schedule:

March 17 – Do we love our bodies?
March 31 – Are we willing to go under the knife?
April 7 – Are we sexy?
April 14 – How do we view our body parts?
April 21 – Who do we compare ourselves to?
April 28 – Are we satisfied with our weight?
May 5 – Are we looking forward to aging?

Survey respondents

Although Silver & Grace is intended for the over forty crowd, 36% of the respondents were under the age of forty. It was gratifying to have the younger women participate. It will be interesting to see from the survey results if the younger women view themselves differently than the older women.

For the over forty participants, here is the age breakdown:

• 40 – 49 years old – 20%
• 50 – 59 years old – 30%
• 60 – 69 years old – 10%
• over 70 years old – 4%

And it wasn’t just women who participated. Men made up 2% of the respondents. Thank you, gentlemen. I will be adding your two cents into the analysis.

A teaser

I tried to go into this survey without preconceived notions of the outcome. But that is, of course, challenging given I have my own body image concepts.

Some of the answers I certainly expected. For example, there is hardly a single woman who likes her belly area. However, I have to admit some of the responses blew me away. The majority answers were absolutely not what I expected. And no, I’m not giving you an example; hence the word teaser.

Reader involvement

Silver & Grace is a place for us to share our thoughts on the spiritual and physical aspects of aging. Your responses to this survey helped to collect your thoughts into nicely packaged statistics to analyze. However, survey questions force us into yes/no and black/white answers. I, therefore, encourage everyone to add their opinions and concerns on each of these important topics in the comments section of each post.

I am really looking forward to some in depth conversations of how we view our bodies, be we under forty or over forty.

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Body Image Survey

What are we supposed to look like as we age? According to the media and beauty industry, we are supposed to be wrinkle free. We are supposed to have impossibly perky breasts. We are supposed to have tiny waists and flat tummies. And heaven forbid we show a strand of gray hair!

We are told that our men will have a mid-life crisis and leave us for much younger women.

We aren’t supposed to enjoy sex. And if we do, it better be in a long established loving relationship. Sex for the sake of enjoying being sexual creatures? That’s for Cougars!

But the reality is, our skin is wrinkled. Our breasts are hanging lower. Our waists have expanded and our tummies are rounded.

That gray hair? Short of dying our roots once a week, it will show through.

Based on this, what is the reality of how we view our bodies as we age?

Well, we are going to find out. As a group!

Please take moment to fill out this completely anonymous survey on Body Image. It will take less than five minutes of your time.

Have your say about Body Image. Click here to take survey.

Then make sure you check back in March to find out what we all had to say about how we view our bodies.

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