Read the interview with Alena Slezáčková, who participated in the translation of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 into the Czech environment. The large-scale project confirmed that people who have a kinder attitude towards their bodies show higher levels of life satisfaction and psychological resilience. Also that Czechs have a rather average perception of their bodies.
What can I imagine under the term body appreciation?
It is difficult to translate into English, but I would say it is a positive or kind attitude towards your body. It is part of a research stream called body positivity, but this term has recently become popularized and often not optimally presented. It's good to take care of our physical condition and our appearance, but if for some reason we can't, it's good to accept ourselves as we are. However, some trends have been going to extremes in this regard lately...
For example, what do respondents answer in the questionnaire?
They evaluate how much they respect their body, how good they feel about it, whether they are sensitive to its needs, etc.
So it's not so much about whether a person is happy with the way he or she looks, but about how he or she perceives himself or herself?
How can they be perceptive, sensitive, kind, considerate, respectful. So it can't be boiled down to attractiveness and how I like myself.
Why is it so crucial to find out things like this?
It has been found repeatedly before that people who have a kinder attitude towards their bodies have higher levels of life satisfaction and psychological resilience. The main purpose of the current study was to see if the questionnaire measures the same concept across cultures and across regions. And interestingly, it turned out that despite all the cultural and social differences, this methodology can be applied universally.
Proč je tak zásadní podobné věci zjišťovat?
Už dříve bylo opakovaně zjištěno, že lidé, kteří mají vlídnější postoj ke svému tělu, vykazují míru vyšší životní spokojenosti a psychické odolnosti. Účelem aktuální studie bylo hlavně zjistit, zda daný dotazník měří stejný koncept napříč kulturami a napříč regiony. A je zajímavé, že se ukázalo, že přes všechny kulturní a sociální rozdílnosti lze tuto metodiku použít univerzálně.
What assumptions did you go into the study with and were they confirmed?
It confirmed that men tend to be more satisfied with their bodies than women. It was confirmed that people in middle adulthood, roughly between the ages of 25 and 44, are the least satisfied with their bodies. And interesting results also came out of an international comparison, with Maltese, Taiwanese and Bangladeshis proving to be the most satisfied with their bodies.
Malta intrigued me as it came top of the satisfaction charts with countries that could be considered developing, including, for example, the Philippines...
Me too. Coincidentally, I go there regularly, so I've had a chance to soak up the culture a bit, and Malta is more traditional compared to other European countries. There's an interesting mix of cultures from Africa, from Arab countries, from Italy, but also from Britain. Compared to Czech culture, Maltese culture is more traditional, significantly more religious and collectivist, which I think played a role in their placement in our research. This is because it turns out that the less a given culture or nation resembles the so-called WEIRD culture - westernised, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic - the more satisfied its representatives are with their bodies. Apparently, they do not put so much emphasis on the media image of beauty.
However, if I generalize the results, I would say that the most satisfied with their bodies are men, aged 18 to 24, financially secure, living in developed countries, ideally somewhere rural and ideally single. That's the romantic notion of the cowboy in the unnamed cigarette ad...
The lead authors of the research are trying to explain this, and one possible explanation is that these may be people who have the time to take up sports and build their identity on good looks and feeling good about their bodies.
On the other hand, there is a group of people just from developing countries who are generally happy even though they may not be economically stable, despite the fact that women have more children and far more worries about providing for the necessities of life. They may not have the need or the time to deal with their physical needs, or am I wrong?
Yes, there's no pressure for those mediaised beauty ideals and their relationship with their bodies is more based on whether one is physically fit enough to do their job or to bring children into the world. So they base their relationship to their own bodies more on, let's say, the utilitarian aspect and how much they can rely on their bodies. Whereas in WEIRD cultures it is more about the external image and how they conform to media ideals of beauty and attractiveness.
To what extent can the relationships between body perception and life satisfaction be disentangled? What is cause and what is effect? It occurs to me that the happier I am with my body, the happier I am in life, and the happier I am in life, the kinder I will be to my body...
Such an idea is close to a comprehensive psychosomatic view of physical and mental well-being. While this is not directly the topic of the study under discussion, other research has addressed it before. I would just caution against the shorthand understanding that, for example, people living with a disability or illness cannot be happy. That is not the case. Happiness is not a binary unit - I am or am not happy - but it has many sources. One of the prevailing views of what mental well-being is captures five main pillars, and it's not just about being in a good mood, but the quality of my relationships comes into it, whether I'm doing what I enjoy and find fulfilling, whether I'm meeting my needs and goals... So there are multiple sources of mental well-being, and how we feel in our bodies, how we accept them with their imperfections, is one of those streams. Although it turns out to be quite significant.
From the period of covid lockdowns I can confirm that the impossibility and lack of habitual movement, which as a result led to the deterioration of my physical condition, depressed me a lot...
Mental wellbeing also has a significant emotional component, and sport and physical activity are confirmed to aid the production of endorphins that enhance this emotional wellbeing. There are a lot of interconnections, so you can't point to just one factor. However, what we have now confirmed across continents and cultures is that attitudes towards the body are based on similar experiences, regardless of origin. Incidentally, the study was conducted during the pandemic and the authors cite this as one of its biggest limitations. Because even positive health habits could have been significantly affected by not being able to go to a fitness center or play sports and could perceive that it was negatively affecting their physical condition and then they were less satisfied with themselves.
But if physical well-being is closely linked to mental well-being, why aren't the Danes and Finns on your list? And the Icelanders, they're somewhere in the middle. Are these the nationalities that have long emerged from various surveys as the happiest?
That's a good point, but the question would probably have to be answered by colleagues who work in cross-cultural psychology or someone directly from those countries. I was interested to see that the Czech Republic ranked significantly lower than Slovakia...
What explains the difference?
Well, it has to be said that the differences are not that significant on the one hand. But theoretically, it could be due to the pandemic mentioned above, because in the Czech Republic we had some of the strictest lockdowns, associated with restrictions on many activities... Otherwise, there are studies on mental well-being in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and we may see in them that Slovakia is starting to move away from the Czech Republic in terms of values.
“The less cultures or nations resemble the so-called WEIRD culture - western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic - the more satisfied their representatives are with their bodies. Apparently, they do not put so much emphasis on media images of beauty.”
doc. PhDr. Alena Slezáčková, Ph.D.
To what extent is how we perceive our own bodies socially crucial, for example, in the context of surveys showing that more than half of girls between the ages of 10 and 17 are already dissatisfied with their bodies?
This is a really big problem and it is one of the reasons why we should pay attention to this topic and why similar cross-sectional studies should be done and rating scales validated so that they can be used in other research, even more clinically oriented research. The number of cases of eating disorders, self-harm and other things that point to negative acceptance of one's body shell is really increasing rapidly. I think this is a topic that should be opened up in school education, so that it doesn't happen that, for example, the PE teacher makes some inappropriate remarks... Of course, there is also the interpretation that it is related to social networks and the media coverage of false appearance, the fact that the emphasis is often placed on the external manifestations of success, which often go hand in hand - especially for women - with a perfect, gym-worn figure and a wrinkle-free face.
Which brings me back to countries like Bangladesh or the Philippines, which topped the list of body satisfaction. I guess people aren't under that much media pressure there yet, right? I am reminded of an experience in China, which I visited during a period of great economic growth and social liberation. I was struck by how obsessed the young Chinese in particular were with what we might call the achievements of Western society and the outward manifestations of supposed happiness...
I experienced something similar in my travels to India, which was a traditional, religious and collectivist country until twenty years ago. However, with the advent of the internet and mobile phones, there was then very quickly this craving for Western advances among the younger generation. And it is clear that this desire to disrespect one's roots and culture, to conform to something that is perhaps not authentic and is imported, and which sometimes entails an effort to burn bridges with one's family, faith and tradition, takes a toll on one's mental well-being.
And then we have India at the penultimate place in the ranking...
...as one of the countries where people have the least positive relationship with their bodies.
So what can we do to be healthy with our bodies?
It is important to take care of our bodies through a balance of physical activity and relaxation, where we can experience a sense of relaxation and replenish our strength. And we also already know that we can take care of our bodies through effective stress management, because increased stress and prolonged discomfort take a toll on the health and function of our body systems. So, first of all: take care. Second: accept that not everything is under our control, that we have some innate dispositions and acquired traits, for example due to injury or illness. Accept that our body evolves over time, accept its natural changes. And thirdly: not to compare ourselves. Be grateful for what we have. The physical body allows us to be, to perceive, to respond, to function, to work and to enjoy in this physical world. I think we should be more grateful that we have a physical body as an amazing system of interconnected and functioning mechanisms with all of our senses feeding our mental capacity. To stop once in a while and realize that this is actually a great thing, and that what we often take for granted allows us to live our lives in the here and now. And there's really no need to compare ourselves to anyone else in doing so.
After last year's Alumni Day, which introduced the concept of linking the event with annual graduations, those whose alma mater is the Brno Medical Faculty will meet again after a year. A rich programme has been prepared for them on 21 June.
Every year, over sixty students come to Brno hospitals for exchange internships under the auspices of the IFMSA student organisation. They take home not only valuable work experience.
