Reframing Bodies: New Coordinates of the Body Image

Abstract

The article analyzes the results of a sociological survey of urban residents’ perceptions of the beauty standards and their most desired body models. The survey was conducted in three cities of a large industrial Russian region (n = 1,077). The body as a bio-social construct is now undergoing significant transformations in public consciousness. As our survey shows, however, beauty standards in Russia are fairly stereotypical: the ideal female body is expected to be sexual, well-groomed, and slender (we refer to this body type as an aesthetic body model or body as an object) and the male body to be physically strong, resilient, and fit (the functional body model or body as a process). Describing their desired body model, male and female respondents of different age groups often choose the functional body model, that is, they prioritize what the body can do over what it looks like. The survey shows mixed results regarding the effects of the pandemic on people’s attitudes to their bodies and body care practices. Only a third of the respondents directly associate their individual bodily experience of disease with the change in their body care practices. Two-thirds of the respondents reported that during the lockdown they started taking better care of their bodies, paying more attention to personal hygiene, physical exercise, and sleep.