Body Image in Women during Midlife

Abstract

The present paper deals with the body image formed in women during the period of middle adulthood, or midlife. The research featured Russian-speaking women, who demonstrated a global trend in that they expressed mainly negative ideas about their body and a standard dissatisfaction with their appearance. The women were concerned with their body weight, shape, and functional characteristics. In middle adulthood, body image is determined, to a large extent, by the exclusively female bodily experience, i.e. menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. For instance, women with a positive attitude towards their own body were less likely to have abortions or miscarriages, complications during pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, they expressed more pronounced positive feelings associated with the movement of the fetus in the womb. In general, positive body image was found to form in those pregnant women who moved on from evaluating their appearance to evaluating the functionality of their body. The data also showed that the body image in women aged 25–40 depended on the body mass index: women with a lower body mass index had a more positive body image.