In today’s society, it is commonplace for women to be unhappy with their bodies. For the most part, our media promotes a generally unrealistic and unattainable standard of what women should look like, and, as a result, we spend all of our time nit-picking our bodies and wishing we had a different one. However, an article detailing a recent study has suggested some pretty interesting findings: women who are comfortable with their bodies and happy with the way they look are generally happier in their romantic relationships.
This same study also suggested that women who were pleased with the relationship they were in at the time were more likely to be content with their weight and body image. The study was conducted in Tallinn University, located in Estonia, by Sabina Vatter. The study is interesting in that it lends evidence to the idea that happiness with one’s body can be translated to the status of your feelings towards your romantic partner.
In this same study women who had dieted in the past or were on a diet at that moment in time were more likely to feel poorly about their current weight and be more self-conscious of their bodies. Similarly, women who had more negative feelings about their own body reported to be less happy in their relationships. The conductor of the study, Sabina Vassar, said, “They [the women in the study] had lower self-esteem and were less satisfied with their sexual intimacy.”
It seems that feeling better about your body in turn contributes to feeling more self confident, be it in yourself as a person or in your relationships. This study goes to show how much happier we can be in our daily lives and in our interactions with others if we embrace our bodies and are proud of them- as women should be.