Men, Women and Body Image
It doesn’t take much to make a man feel satisfied with his body: a look in the mirror and a sense of well-being seem sufficient. For women, however, changes in body image need to be supported by hard, physical evidence. The results follow up on an earlier study suggesting that mirrors can make women feel worse about working out.
According to a press release reporting on research by Kathleen Martin Ginis, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University:
“We thought — obviously incorrectly — that women’s body image would improve more than men’s as they progressed through the strength training study,” Martin Ginis said. “We were surprised by the responsiveness of men’s body image to strength training. Men’s body image improved as much as women’s. Yet interestingly, men didn’t care about numbers–how much weight they actually lost or how much muscle they actually gained had no bearing on their body image; if they simply felt more muscular and stronger, or if their pants were looser, that was good enough to improve their body image. But when it came to the women, feeling thinner and stronger was only part of the story. The women who had the greatest improvements in body image were those who saw actual increases in the amount of weight they could lift at the gym.”
The study followed men and women, between the ages of 18 and 29, during a 12-week full-body progressive resistance-training program. Significant body image improvements were found for both sexes but it seems that men’s and women’s body image improved for different reasons. For the men, body image improvements were related to perceived changes in their bodies. For the women, body image improvements were related to perceived and real changes in their bodies.
These latest results from Martin Ginis complement earlier work by same researcher suggesting that mirrors can make women feel worse about working out. That 2003 study found that sedentary women who exercised in front of a mirror for 20 minutes felt less energized, less relaxed and less positive and upbeat than women who performed their workout without a mirror. Women who exercised without the mirror also reported that they were less physically exhausted at the end of their workout, while those with a mirror reported no change in their exhaustion level.
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