If you’re struggling to love your body, a new study suggests you’ll be happy with it eventually.
Researchers assessed the body satisfaction of around 15,000 men and women in New Zealand over the course of six years.
They found body satisfaction increased across the lifespan for both men and women, but women specifically started to love their body around the age of 60 and men between the ages of 59 and 64.
It’s possible that a newfound appreciation for how we look around the 60-mark coincides with our health becoming more important than our looks – for both men and women.
The researchers warn that for women, pregnancy and postpartum periods typically lead to physiological changes that can negatively affect body image.
These are ‘inconsistent with rigid beauty ideals’, they say, such as weight gain, body shape changes, hair thinning and skin blemishes.
Despite this, it may be possible that body dissatisfaction is less severe than it was several generations ago, according to the researchers.
Body satisfaction increases across the lifespan for men and women, a new study from experts in Australia and the University of Auckland in New Zealand reveals. But women specifically started to love their body around the age of 60
The study was conducted by scientists at Griffith University and the University of Queensland in Australia and University of Auckland in New Zealand.
‘Results of this study show a relatively flat pattern for women with a slight increase in women’s body satisfaction across the lifespan, especially in later years of life – from roughly 60 years of age,’ they say.
‘This finding sits in contrast to our predictions and a body of research suggesting that body dissatisfaction is relatively stable across the female lifespan.’
The team claim ‘body-related perceptual shifts’ may gradually occur across the female lifespan as women get older.
This buffers against the impact of ‘damaging thin and youthful ideals’ in Western cultures that may make women want to lose weight.
For the study, researchers examined patterns of change and cohort effects in body image across the male and female adult lifespan.
The longitudinal study assessed body satisfaction in 15,264 participants – 62.9 per cent of whom were women – aged between 18 to 94 years of age from various waves of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study.
It’s possible that a newfound appreciation for how we look around the 60-mark coincides with our health becoming more important than our looks – for both men and women
The participants’ body satisfaction was assessed over the course of six years, from 2010 to 2015.
Body satisfaction was measured with the response to a single statement – ‘I am satisfied with the appearance, size and shape of my body’ – scored on a scale from 1 (very inaccurate) to 7 (very accurate).
Body satisfaction increased across the lifespan for men and women, while men were shown to consistently have greater body satisfaction than women, the study found.
Contrary to existing research, the findings also found recent improvements in body image for women of a certain cohort.
Young and middle-aged women were shown to grow happier with their bodies during the study’s assessment period.
Women who entered the survey at 19, 29, 39, 44, and 49 years of age each showed significant improvement in their body image over the five years of assessment.
‘These patterns were so marked, that in many cases women were entering age stages with higher body satisfaction than that reported by their preceding cohort who entered the study five years prior,’ the authors say.
‘These results depict a positive story that sits in contrast to much of the past literature, in which body image appeared to be getting increasingly worse across time and generations.’
For women aged 54 years and below, all but two cohorts (24 to 29 and 34 to 39 years) displayed an upward trajectory in their body satisfaction.
Declines in body satisfaction for these two cohorts may be due to potential declines during biological periods of vulnerability, such as post-partum and menopausal periods.
In men, meanwhile, the 39 to 44 cohort had higher levels of body satisfaction than the 44 to 49 cohort, which showed a marked decline.
‘Overall, the results of the current paper demonstrate an improvement in body satisfaction across the lifespan for both men and women.
‘While men consistently demonstrated greater body satisfaction than their female counterparts, cohort effects suggest increasing body positivity (or at least less appearance related negativity) for women.’
The study has been published in the journal Body Image.
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