Body image forms gradually, beginning in childhood. Life experiences lead some people to relate to their bodies in positive and satisfying ways, while other people travel a less enjoyable path. The factors that influence body image development can be divided into two basic categories:

1. The historical influences from your past are the forces that shaped how you came to view your appearance in the ways that you do.


2. The current influences are the events and experiences in everyday life that determine how you think, feel, and react to your looks.

You must explore each of these two influences in greater detail so that you can really understand your personal body image development. Focus on the historical causes and deal with the forces responsible for your day-to-day body image experiences.

Your basic sense of identity is rooted in your experience of being embodied. The body is the boundary between you and everything that is not you. By the age of two years, most children have self-awareness and can recognize their physical self as a reflection in the mirror. More and more, their bodily being comes to represent who they are in their own eyes. Then they begin to reflect upon how other people view their appearance.

There are four categories of historical factors that govern body image development: cultural forces, interpersonal experiences, physical characteristics and changes, and individual personality traits. These factors shape all of our body image attitudes—the perceptions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings we come to have about our physical appearance. These attitudes include not only how satisfied or dissatisfied we are with our looks, they also involve how invested we are in our physical appearance for defining who we are and who we want to be. Some events and experiences have a negative influence and others a positive influence on our unfolding body image attitudes.

Excerpt from The Body Image Workbook: An Eight-Step Program for Learning to Like Your Looks by Thomas F. Cash Ph.D.