Okay, yes, we all still live in a world where, yeah, you are judged by your body. It stinks something bad. But—good news—according to a new study, women are caring less and less about the body standards the world has held them to since we all crawled out of the ocean.
Dr. Bryan Karazsia of The College of Wooster recently presented a paper at the American Psychological Association’s 124th Annual Convention that suggested that women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies has declined over the last 30 years. Said Dr. Karazsia—who analyzed over 250 studies including 100,000 participants—of the findings, “While women consistently report being more dissatisfied with their bodies than men as far as thinness is concerned, that dissatisfaction has decreased over the 31-year period we studied.” Solid news, yeah?
There’s a lot of factors going into this, of course. Americans are generally curvier than they used to be, the media presents a more diverse range of body types than it used to, and, all in all, women are more liberated and self-sufficient now than they were a generation ago.
As well, there are all those body-positive commandos out there from Ashley Graham and so on championing curves and self-acceptance on social media. Long and short: We all still have a way to go, but darn it if we’re not getting there.
