According to Norris (1978), "body image is the ever-changing total of conscious and unconscious information, perceptions and feelings about one's body as different and apart from all others. It is a social creation, developed through reflected perceptions of the surface of one's body, investments one makes in parts or the whole of the body and responses to sensations originating at the inner regions of the body as the individual experiences a kaleidoscopic variety of activities. The body image is basic to identity and has been referred to as the somatic ego." Bard and Sutherland (1955) found evidence that for some women, self-worth and self-acceptance were predicated on body attractiveness throughout their lives.

A principle reason so many women perceive their bodies as problems is that we live in a culture that says women must be beautiful to be worthy, and then sets up standards for female beauty that are not only impossible for most women to live up to, but are unhealthy as well. (Donovan, Sanford, 1984)

Our images of womanhood are almost synonymous with thinness. (Orbach, 1983) Fashion lets us know what our culture expects us to be, or to become, or to struggle to become, in order to be acceptable to it, thereby exercising a devastating power over our lives on a daily basis. The image of women that appears in the advertisement of a daily newspaper has the power to damage a woman's health, destroy her sense of well-being, break her pride in herself, and subvert her ability to accept herself as a woman. (Chernin, 1981)

According to fashion, large size, maturity, voluptuousness, massiveness, strength and power are not permitted if we wish to conform to our culture's current ideal. (Chernin, 1981) "It is now fashionable to be thin, but if it were fashionable to be fat, women would force-feed themselves like geese, just as girls in primitive societies used to stuff themselves because the fattest girl was the most beautiful. If the eighteen inch waist should ever become fashionable again, women would suffer the tortures of tight lacing, convinced that though one dislocated one's kidneys, crushed one's liver , and turned green, beauty was worth it all." (Una Stannard - Chernin, 1981)

No matter what the historical period, the common denominator for women has been to conform. (Boskind-White, White, 1983) Women attempt to conform to what others find pleasing and attractive and also what she perceives them to consider pleasing and attractive. (Orbach, 1983) Women are made to believe their body is not satisfactory as it is. (Orbach, 1983) This fact keeps women "off balance", in a constant state of confusion.

Again, we can look to the diet industry as well as the advertising media for insight. The diet industry became big business when Twiggy appeared on the fashion scene. (Boskind-White, White, 1983) Young women came to believe that if they could conform to the ideal, and be perfect in body, life's major problems would magically disappear. (Boskind-White, White, 1983)

The television and printed word advertisers are at us constantly with the message to conform. They provide visual reinforcement of our role in society and play on our psychological side for a need for approval, acceptance and a sense of belonging. What a group to belong to. Images of idealized female role models are flaunted at us and we are told they are the ideals to strive for. And oddly enough, we as females sometimes attempt to keep each other in check.

Women tend to judge their bodies on a part-by-part basis. (Shontz, 1963) The media advertisers teach us this way of analyzing ourselves. The media uses "parts" of women to advertise a product, whereas men are used in their entirety. (Sanford, Donovan, 1984) A women's hands, legs, breasts, waist, buttocks or lips, for example, are used rather than the entire woman and women learn from the media to analyze, accept or reject more often their individual parts rather than seeing themselves as a whole person. Within western society at the current time, the image of the beautiful female is one who is thin (Goldblatt, Moore and Stuckard, 1974) and perfect in every part.

Being thin, or more particularly, not being obese, is culturally desirable in our society. There are adverse social reactions toward obesity. Obesity is a social liability which obviously must influence the values and lifestyles of the individuals so afflicted. (Jupp, Collins, McCabe, Waker, Diment, 1983) Fat symbolizes power in a man, never in a woman - it symbolizes inferiority and worthlessness. (Donovan, Sanford, 1984) And even if a woman does have the looks of the cultural ideal, she must still cope with the fact that she will not fit the ideal forever. (Donovan, Sanford, 1984)

We are a culture nearly addicted to individual control. "The stress associated with shame and discrimination may have more to do with the pathology attributed to fatness in our society than to the mechanical fact of the fat itself." (Mackenzie, 1984)

Women who focus so much of their attention on how they hate their bodies, also tend to separate their bodies from their person as if they are not one in the same. (Hooker, Convisser, 1983) This act of depersonalization is common among the weight conscious. The face becomes the identity rather than the entire person. Worrying about dieting, worrying about being skinny or fat, is just a smoke screen. The real issue has to do with how you feel about yourself. (Bruch, 1973)

Waxler and Liska (1975) defined body image as the conceptualization of one's body structure and its functions that grew out of an awareness of the self and one's body in interrelated actions. The body concept includes perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions which the ego has in reference to its own body.

An archaic self-image/body-image is a residual from the past. As long as we cling to it, it does not allow for choice in the present moment. Every time some portion of the old image is remembered, feelings, thoughts, and behavior are influenced to some degree. Our past has been transported to the present. Our outward expressions are guided by this old image.

It is not what a woman is that holds her back, it is what she thinks she is not. This type of thinking does not let new possibilities present themselves. They get rejected because the individual believes that they are not that type of person.

When a person changes their self-image, their personality and behavior follow. (Waitley, 1984) There are alot of old associations stored away in the mind which influence us constantly - unless we change them. We cannot exceed the limits of our current self-image, so we must first open the door to see ourselves differently so new possibilities may enter. Unfortunately, we generally behave as we think others expect us to. This protects us from our own fears of what we would inflict on the other person by not doing what they expected us to; i.e., embarrassment, rejection, etc. These fears are old haunts from the past and it is necessary to put them aside in order to please or satisfy one's own needs.

Self-image is the set of beliefs and image we all have and hold to be true of ourselves. (Donovan, Sanford, 1984) If we as women continue to believe that we deserve no better than second-class, or a second-rate life, then that is all we will ever have. We must believe we are worth more to give ourselves more and thus have more.

Self-esteem is the sum total of all that a person feels about himself/herself. (Schain, 1980) This includes four major aspects: (1) the body self: which has a functional (what can I do?) and an aesthetic (how do I look?) subfactor; (2) the interpersonal self: which is comprised of both social and acquaintance relations as well as intimate, sexual interactions; (3) the achieving self: which contains elements of work or competition efforts such as career or school behavior; and (4) the identification self: which is comprised of those attitudes and behaviors which are related to spiritual, ethical or ethnic matters.

Genuine self-esteem is how you feel about yourself privately, not whether you can put up a good front or accumulate wealth and status. (Briggs, 1970) Self-esteem is the measure of how much we like and approve of our self-concept. Self-esteem is the relationship you have with yourself. It is the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect. It is the conviction that one is competent and worthy of living. (Branden, 1981)

With low self-esteem and a poor body-image or self-concept, a feeling of helplessness can set in. Stotland (1969) states that a person who has "failed in a variety of tasks is less likely to raise his level of aspiration on a new task after a success than a person who has failed on only one." That person has "developed a higher level of hopelessness" and is "therefore less influenced by success."

Webster's dictionary defines self-esteem as having "confidence and satisfaction in oneself - having a good opinion of oneself - self-worth, self-respect". Obesity promotes low self-esteem and as a result, life is put on hold. The fantasy that "life begins when I get thin" is just that, a fantasy. Life is now, every moment. There are no time outs. Low self-esteem only increased the amount of deprivation a woman forces herself to accept.