Session: Body Image and Health Across the Lifespan (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Body image is a salient issue for the majority of girls and women in the United States.  In fact, most girls and women are dissatisfied with their bodies.  Unfortunately, this dissatisfaction is linked to numerous negative outcomes, including eating disorders, depression, anxiety, risky sexual behaviors, and poor physical health behaviors and outcomes.  Conversely, positive body image is associated with some better mental, physical, and sexual health behaviors and outcomes, though this area of scholarship is underdeveloped. 

Social work practitioners regularly assess clients for their strengths and resources; thus, social workers are uniquely positioned to provide services and interventions that aim to improve women’s body image to negate the aforementioned negative consequences.  However, body image and health scholarship is scant in the social work literature and this gap must be addressed in order to embody the social work profession.  The papers in this symposium aim to better understand how body image is related to health over the lifespan and have implications for social work across practice areas.

Paper 1: The first study used linear regression to explore the association between body appreciation, measured by the Body Appreciation Scale, and perceived physical and mental health status, measured by the SF-12 Health Survey, among a community sample of adult women.  By exploring positive body image and subjective physical and mental health among women, this study suggests the imperative of providing interventions that improve women’s body image.

Paper 2: Using a nationally representative sample of young adults in the US, this study explores the relationship between weight misperception and two risky sexual behaviors, age at first intercourse and number of sexual partners.  This study adds to existing literature by exploring differences in the relationship between body image and sexual behavior by race and gender.  Additionally, this paper provides support for the idea that improving body image may lead to a decrease in negative sexual health-related outcomes.

Paper 3: This study is the first to explore the relationship between obesity and body image among maltreated and comparison youth.  An understanding of how body size and body image differ for maltreated youth can help inform interventions that seek to address body image and its associated negative consequences among this vulnerable population.

Taken together, these studies represent a call for the inclusion of body image in social work research, practice, and policy.  Social workers need to understand how body image can impact clients’ lives and how to assess for and treat body image concerns among clients.  By embodying the social work profession through the inclusion of body image, we will have the opportunity to address the whole person; thereby improving client well-being.  This symposium will create a space in which these conversations can begin.