Understanding the self includes understanding the surroundings and what influences

our outlook in our beauty. Culture may seem to have an effect also on how people view

themselves and how they construct their images and boost their self-esteem. Physical

aspect of the self may also provide understanding and the importance of beauty.

The Impact of Culture on Body Image and Self-Esteem: The Importance of Beauty

● After going through all the concepts and theories that may affect the person’s view of his physical

self, there’s another factor that strongly impacts this perception, his cultural milieu. Culture is

defined as a social system that is characterized by the shared meanings that are attributed to people

and events by its members.

● There are a lot of movies in the past that are about the body. One of the most successful horror

movies of the 1950s entitled Invasion of the Body Snatcher, wherein human beings were replaced

with new bodies and devoid human emotions. Another is the The Stepford Wives that took the idea

of body replacement. In this movie husbands were killing their wives and replacing them with

robots who look exactly like them, but perfectly submissive. Some other movies about the body

include Shallow Hal (2001), Huge (2010), 200 pound Beauty (2010) and Imperfect (2019).

● The makeup of a body is a collection of cells, combined into organs, which themselves operate in

systems. In humans, that body typically takes on a form with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a

head. But the question is, is there such a thing as a universal decontextualized body? The answer is

no. bodies are shaped in countless ways by culture, by society, and by the experiences that are

shared with a social and cultural context. Since it is also shaped by history, there are always

changing ideas about it. It can be assumed that the body is contingent – meaning molded by factors

outside the body, and internalized into the physical being itself.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

● A significant aspect of culture that strongly influences adolescents who are in a face-to-face

encounter with their physical selves is how their culture conceptualizes beauty. Young adolescents

are forced to adhere to society’s definition of beauty lest they be labelled ugly or “pangit” in local
dialect.

● This is what is called the social constructionist approach to understanding the physical self. This

suggests that beauty, weight, sexuality, or race do not simply result from the collection of genes

one inherited from one’s parents. Instead, these bodily features only take on the meaning that they

have. A person may have a certain set of facial features, or weigh a certain number of pounds and

attractiveness will come from the time and place in which they live.

● These meanings occur within a set of culturally constructed power relations which suggest that, for

example, women must be attractive in order to be valuable. But this process does not just happen

after we enter culture. How those features will be interpreted will then be shaped by culture, but

the features themselves will already be present. Meaning what occurs is that once something comes

to take on cultural meaning, it becomes naturalized: people think that things are the way that they

are because they have always been that way. These meanings have been created, and that they can

change, and that there’s nothing natural at all. Even something that seems to be rooted in the body

as disability is partially socially constructed.

● This differs from what might be called an essentialist view of the body. Essentialism means that

bodies are defined entirely by their biological make-up – bones, muscles, hormones, and the like.

Much of human behavior can also be reduced to many of those biological functions, it is referred

to by social scientists call a reductionist idea that complex human behaviors can be reduced to

something as simple as, for example, hormones. This simply means that we cannot understand the

biological organism without first understanding social, cultural, and historical context in which it

exists.

● Another example of how norms of masculinity and femininity shape not just behavior, but public

perceptions are those people who did activities of the other gender. They were praised at the same

time and criticized just by doing what is not expected to their gender. With this, the idea that the

body is marked with culture and society is the term social skin to refer to the ways in which social

categories become inscribed onto physical body. Through the social skin, the body becomes the

symbolic stage on which dramas of society are enacted. This idea is from the anthropologist

Terence Turner (1980).

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● Another anthropologist, Mary Douglas (1973) said that the body is the most natural symbol for and

medium of classification, and thus rules associated with controlling the body and its processes

emerge as a powerful means of social control. She is the one who centralized the analysis of the

body focused on traditional societies. Therefore, the physical body is a threat to the social body.

Further, she finds that societies with strict social limits would regard boundaries with caution

including bodily boundaries.

● In sociology, how the body operates as a

focus and symbol has been understood as

well. In the fourteenth to the seventeenth

centuries, the civilization process includes

the beginning of Europeans to internalize

many of the external forms of social

control; however, shame and

embarrassment took place, controlling their

behaviors from within. This control of

behavior from within was made as theory

by Erving Goffman (1982) which is called

the Dramaturgical theory. The theory

suggests that we are all actors on a stage,

and much of what we do is engage in

impression management during which we

must monitor and adjust our own behavior in accordance with how people want others to perceive

them.

● A woman is what she wears – this statement is from the work of Janes Gaines on fashion (1990)

which implies that women are often defined completely by their clothing –. In this study, it suggests

that people have body images. Body image can be described as a representation of how individuals

think and feel about their own physical attributes. Body image is both internal (personal) and

external (society).
● This includes (1) how a person perceives his body, (2) how a person feels about their physical

appearance, (3) how a person thinks and talks to themselves about their bodies, and (4) a sense of

how other people view their bodies. Though sometimes how a person looks has possibly never held

as much as societal importance or reflected so significantly on our perceived self-worth.

● Body image is the mental representation one creates, but it may or may not bear close relation to

how others actually see you. Body image is subject to all kinds of distortion from internal elements

like our emotions, moods, early experiences, attitudes of our parents, and much more. The mass

media has increasingly become a platform that reinforce cultural beliefs and projects strong views

on how we should look, that we as individuals often unknowingly validate. With such strong

societal scrutiny, it is easy to see how the focus is on negative body image. Nevertheless, it strongly

influences behavior. Preoccupation with and distortions of body image are widespread among

American women (and to a lesser extent, among males), but they are driving forces in eating

disorders, feeding severe anxiety than can be assuaged only by dieting.

● Having a sense of understanding that healthy attractive bodies come in many shapes and sizes,

and that physical appearance says very little about the character or value of a person, a person can

have a positive body image. How to get to this point depends on the acceptance and esteem that a

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

person has for himself. This can be related to the meaning of self-esteem. In which, it is related to

how much a person likes himself, how they recognize or appreciate their individual character,

qualities, skills, and accomplishments. Like body image, self-esteem can also be based on how a

person thinks other people look at them as a person.

● Self-esteem is the overall evaluation that a person has of himself which can be positive or negative,

high or low. Self esteem is a measure of the person’s self-worth based on some personal or social

standard. It is a global evaluative dimension of the self.

● Self-esteem is how valuable to himself and others he person perceives himself to be. Needless to

say, people with positive or high self-esteem are happier, have a sense of accomplishment and

purpose and relate well with others.

● The impact of culture on body image and self-esteem has

been very crucial for sometimes people depend on this as

when they define beautiful. It has been assumed that

preferences for beauty are gradually learned through cultural

transmission and exposure to contemporary media.

● Charles Darwin in 1871 became one of the first persons,

if not the first, to think and write extensively about human

beauty from a biological point of view, concluding that there

is no universal standard of beauty with respect to the human

body and attempts to determine underlying dimensions of

beauty are futile. However, in 1985, contrary to Darwin’s

beliefs, Samuels and Ewy showed that both 3-month-old and

6-month-old infants looked longer at male and female faces

previously rated as attractive by adults, suggesting that infants have the cognitive ability to

discriminate attractiveness. These findings have been further supported, and it has even been shown

that young infants show preferences for attractive faces, measured by looking time, that transcends

gender, race, and age. Problems and other issues will arise when a person’s definition of body

image is different from the understanding of beauty.

● Young people put so much pressure on themselves to attain unrealistic ideals to the point of risking

mental and physical health is unacceptable. The following are some aspects in culture that may

have led to some misconceptions:

1. Society’s ideal for the perfect physical form for men and women.

2. Images of perfection brought by all types of media i.e print, television, film, and

internet.

3. Since a standard has been set by society and reinforced by the media, any

characteristic that does not conform to the standard is labelled as ugly. Body

diversity in size and structure due to genetic heritability is not tolerated.

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● These misconceptions strongly affect

how the young form their body image

and its influence on their self-esteem.

Knowing that adolescence is the period

where self-identity is formed, it is

important for adults in the environment

to listen to these young people and

provide proper guidance and support.

● Yes, beauty is important. But being

beautiful still depends how a person

defines beauty and the standards he sets

to meet this definition. It is a big mistake

to base beauty on some else’s standard.

People are different and each one is

uniquely beautiful.