The impact of psychological flexibility, thin-ideal and culture on women's body image

What is it about?

In this paper, we contrast the impact of thin-ideal images in the media between participants in Turkey and the UK. We find that participants in the UK show greater susceptibility to the negative impact of the thin-ideal, and that these participants also show greater fear of negative evaluation and less body image flexibility. Psychological flexibility emerged as the strongest protective factor against the impact of the thin-ideal.

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Photo by Hannah Xu on Unsplash

Photo by Hannah Xu on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Although research on the impact of media on body dissatisfaction already abounds, this is the first study to our knowledge that directly contrasts such impact between participants in Turkey and the UK, and thus provides new, potentially culturally-related insights into this phenomenon. This is also the only study that we are aware of that simultaneously examines the role that fear of negative evaluation, psychological flexibility and exposure time may play in the impact of the thin-ideal. The findings call for greater flexibility rather than avoidance-based interventions for reducing thin-ideal impact from the media sources.