Body image across the adult lifespan: A longitudinal investigation of developmental and cohort effects

Highlights

• Examined developmental & cohort effects in body image across the adult lifespan.

• Longitudinal - Cohort sequential latent growth curve modelling was utilized.

• Body satisfaction increased across the lifespan for men and women.

• Cohort effects women: body image appears to be improving.

• Men consistently have greater body satisfaction than women.

Abstract

The current study examined patterns of normative change and cohort effects in body image across the male and female adult lifespan. Body satisfaction was assessed in longitudinal data spanning six years, from 2010 to 2015. Cohort sequential latent growth curve modelling was utilized to assess patterns of mean-level change due to both aging and cohort effects in 15,264 participants (62.9 % women) aged between 18–94 years (M = 46.55, SD = 14.24). Results demonstrated a very slight increase in body satisfaction across the lifespan for both men and women. Cohort effects demonstrated that for women aged 54 years and below, all but two cohorts (24–29 and 34–39 years) displayed an upward trajectory in their body satisfaction over the 5-year period of assessment. No consistent cohort effects were evident for men. Finally, men, relative to women, consistently displayed higher levels of body satisfaction across the lifespan. This study provides insights into the trajectory of body image across the lifespan for men and women. The findings also suggest recent (cohort) improvements in body image for women, and potential explanations for this unexpected shift are discussed.

Introduction

Vast literature supports the significant impact of poor body image on individual health and wellbeing (Bolton, Pruzinsky, Cash, & Persing, 2003; Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008). To date, however, gender effects and the extent to which age may differentially reduce or amplify body image concerns remain central topics of interest within the body image literature. Speaking to both these issues, the current paper utilized a relatively new statistical technique to investigate the developmental changes in body image across the lifespan, while also examining cohort effects of body image in both male and female populations.

Mounting evidence suggests that body dissatisfaction is normative and relatively stable across the female lifespan (Lewis & Cachelin, 2001; Quittkat, Hartmann, Düsing, Buhlmann, & Vocks, 2019; Tiggemann, 2004; Tiggemann & Lynch, 2001). To understand the developmental trajectory of female body image across the lifespan, however, women’s differing experiences across biological life stages must be considered. As women age, they naturally deviate from the youthful and thin ideals commonly propagated in Western cultures. The thin and youthful beauty ideals encompass rigid sociocultural standards of beauty, with high value placed on excessively slender (thin ideal) and youthful (youthful ideal) appearances as markers of attractiveness (Klaczynski, Goold, & Mudry, 2004; Myers & Crowther, 2007; Perlini, Bertolissi, & Lind, 1999). Research has implicated each ideal as a significant contributor to body image disturbance within Western cultures (Karazsia, van Dulmen, Wong, & Crowther, 2013; Tiggemann, 2004; Webster & Tiggemann, 2003).

Further, normative biological stages of (cisgender) womanhood such as pregnancy and menopause may each impact women’s body image experience. For example, pregnancy and postpartum periods typically incur physiological changes inconsistent with rigid beauty ideals, such as weight gain, body shape changes, hair thinning, and skin blemishes (Tiggemann, 2004). Similarly, menopause typically coincides with physiological symptoms such as weight gain, bloating, and reductions in libido (Lewis & Cachelin, 2001; Mangweth‐Matzek et al., 2014), each of which may amplify negative body image. On the other hand, younger, relative to older women, report experiencing more appearance-based pressures, often tied to finding and securing a partner (Demarest & Allen, 2000). It is possible that such pressures balance the deviations from beauty ideals experienced during middle and older adulthood, resulting in relative stability in body (dis)satisfaction throughout the lifespan.

Having discussed developmental changes in body image, we now turn to considering how cohort effects, or time bound pressures, may affect women’s body image. In line with the supposition that body ideals are often culturally determined, it is sensible to consider whether women born in different time periods are more or less vulnerable to body image concerns. For example, Cash et al.’s (2004) investigation into body image disturbance across 20 years (between 1983–2001), demonstrated increases in body dissatisfaction in women up until the early-to-mid 1990s, suggesting increased pressures placed on women evaluating their bodies during this time. Similarly, comparative results of body image data collected in 1972, 1985, and 1996, (published in Psychology Today; Berscheid, Walster, & Bohrnstedt, 1973; Cash, Winstead, & Janda, 1986; Garner, 1997) are often cited as evidence that body dissatisfaction substantially worsened over the 25 year period (Cash, Morrow, Hrabosky, & Perry, 2004).

The findings described above dovetail with research demonstrating changes in the societal beauty ideals across time. For example, the weights of contestants and winners of an American beauty pageant were found to persistently decline between 1958–1988 (Garner et al., 1980; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992). Similarly, Playboy centerfold models became increasingly slender between 1959 and 1988 (Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Karazsia, Murnen, & Tylka, 2017). Given that the internalisation of the thin ideal has been established as damaging to women’s health and in particular their body image (Karazsia et al., 2013), it seems plausible that an increased prominence of the thin ideal during this time may have resulted in women who were particularly dissatisfied, perhaps especially if they were at formative stages during this period (e.g., adolescence, young adulthood).

In more recent years, a third appearance ideal has also become increasingly prominent across Western cultures: the fit ideal. The fit ideal encompasses a physique that is extremely thin, yet also muscular. Thus, women are increasingly exposed to excessively thin, toned, and youthful portrayals of other women in mainstream and social media - a depiction that is arguably further removed from the average woman than ever before (Grogan, 2008; Kelley, Neufeld, & Musher-Eizenman, 2010; Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2015). Similarly to the thin ideal, the fit ideal has been found to be harmful to women’s body image (Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2015; Uhlmann, Donovan, Zimmer-Gembeck, Bell, & Ramme, 2018).

In contrast to the literature discussed above, however, recent research conducted by Karazsia et al. (2017) suggests a decline in body dissatisfaction for women surveyed between 1981–2012. Similarly, Cash et al. (2004) noted that women surveyed in 2001 reported either the same, or slightly lower, body dissatisfaction relative to women surveyed in 1990. The mixed research findings to date make it difficult to make firm predictions about trends in body image experience across age cohorts for women. What has been routinely demonstrated, however, is that women’s body image is consistently poorer than their male peers (Mellor, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, McCabe, & Ricciardelli, 2010; Quittkat et al., 2019; Tiggemann, 2004).

Historically, the bulk of body image research focused on women. However, recent years have seen a surge of empirical interest in the male experience of body image disturbance. Such research reveals that body dissatisfaction is also normative for men (Cohane & Pope, 2001; Frederick, Jafary, Gruys, & Daniels, 2012), and that both boys’ and men’s body satisfaction is related to self-acceptance and distress (Tager, Good, & Morrison, 2006). Although comparatively scarce, contemporary research provides some insights into the experience of male body dissatisfaction across the lifespan. For example, in their research examining 150 men aged 20–86, Mellor et al. (2010) found that younger men were more dissatisfied with their appearance than older men. Conversely, Ålgars et al. (2009) found that older men were less satisfied than younger men, but due to fluctuations in body dissatisfaction across different age groups, concluded that there is no linear relationship between body image and age for men. Consistent with this idea, in their cross-sectional work Quittkat et al. (2019) found that male body dissatisfaction remained relatively stable across all ages.

Finally, in a 20 year longitudinal study, Keel, Baxter, Heatherton, and Joiner (2007) found that men’s weight increased with age, which subsequently predicted weight dissatisfaction. However, the research did not include an explicit measure of body satisfaction and the mean age at the 20-year follow-up was 40, thus making it difficult to draw conclusions about male body dissatisfaction across the broader lifespan. Such findings appear to align with McCabe and Ricciardelli (2004) review of the literature, in which the authors concluded that research examining male body image across the lifespan is largely inconclusive due to restrictive measures and samples. This research aims to provide some clarity through a largescale study of men over time, and across different life stages.

Like women, men are exposed to sociocultural appearance ideals that might give rise to cohort effects. The mesomorphic ideal (or muscular ideal) encompasses a shape characterised by a slim waist and muscular chest, shoulders and arms (Cafri et al., 2005; McCreary, 2007; Thompson & Cafri, 2007). Evidence suggests that the masculine body ideal has become increasingly muscular over time (Labre, 2002; Thompson & Cafri, 2007). For example, Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, and Borowiecki (1999) examined action figures over 30 years and found that they had become more muscular across the decades, with the most contemporary action figures found to exceed the muscularity of even the largest human body builders of the era. Further, research suggests that the sociocultural influence of the muscular-ideal continued to increase during the 2000s (Thompson & Cafri, 2007), and that mere exposure to the this ideal can induce body dissatisfaction in men (Barlett, Vowels, & Saucier, 2008). Conversely however, a cross-temporal meta-analysis conducted by Karazsia et al. (2017) found that on average, body dissatisfaction remained stable for men surveyed in 1981 compared to men surveyed in 2012.

Taken together, contemporary research suggests that body image remains relatively stable across the female lifespan, yet it remains unclear whether body image differs across the lifespan for men. Further, existing methodological limitations such as cross-sectional data, limited age ranges, and non-representative samples limit confidence in the conclusions that may be drawn for both men and women. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, extant longitudinal studies have been largely unable to account for cohort effects in examinations of body image across the lifespan.

Accordingly, the goal of the current study was to investigate patterns of normative change in men and women’s body dissatisfaction through the use of a large, heterogeneous, longitudinal sample, by considering both developmental and cohort effects. In doing so, we employ a modelling approach that may allow researchers to disentangle the change due to time from the differences attributable to cohort effects. In turn, we estimate a series of cohort-sequential latent growth models (Preacher, Wichman, MacCallum, & Briggs, 2008; Prinzie Onghena, & Hellinckx, 2005) through two complementary approaches—a single group approach and a multigroup framework. When considered together, these two approaches allow an observation of both cohort differences and change over time. The details of the modelling approach are presented in the sections below.

In line with the literature reviewed above, it is hypothesised that female body image will remain relatively stable across the adult lifespan, despite potential declines during biological periods of vulnerability (such as post-partum and menopausal periods). For men, no direct hypotheses are made due to the inconclusive nature of the existing literature. With regard to cohort effects, literature pertaining to sociocultural aesthetic ideals is considered. For women, research hints at an increasingly slender and increasingly prevalent thin-ideal from approximately the 1960s to the mid-1990s. Thus, it is anticipated that women born between 1961 and 1990 may demonstrate increased body dissatisfaction relative to older cohorts. This effect is expected to be particularly prominent for the youngest cohorts, who have also been increasingly exposed to the contemporary sociocultural beauty ideal, the fit-ideal. For men, the scarcity of research makes it difficult to draw concrete hypotheses. However, in line with literature demonstrating a progressively more muscular ideal, particularly post-1970s, it is anticipated that men born between 1961–1990 may demonstrate increased body dissatisfaction when compared to older cohorts relative to those in other cohorts (i.e. those whose formative developmental stages coincided with an increasingly muscular ideal). However, we offer this hypothesis tentatively given that research conducted by Karazsia et al. (2017) recognises the relative stability of male body image across cohorts. Finally, in line with past research, it is anticipated that women will consistently demonstrate greater body dissatisfaction than their male peers.