The Relationship Between Body Satisfaction and Self-Esteem in Women Throughout the Lifespan

In a society that idealizes or stigmatizes women based on what they look like, body satisfaction may play an important role in how women feel about themselves overall. Although body satisfaction is thought to be relatively stable throughout adulthood, little is known about the relationship between body satisfaction and self-esteem across a woman’s lifespan. Importantly, the self-concept is dynamic, changing as women grow and amass new responsibilities. Thus, there is reason to believe that body image should be less crucial to self-esteem later in life. In a cross-sectional survey of 806 women (half over age 65) and in secondary analyses of a large (n > 22,000 women) longitudinal data set, we explore this correlation, with an emphasis on including women over age 65, for whom this relationship has not been closely examined. In both studies, we find that the cross-sectional relationship between body satisfaction and self-esteem is weaker in older women than in younger women. Longitudinal analyses also show that the relationship slightly weakens across the 9 years the women were followed, regardless of their age at the start of the study. Survey results suggest this may be due to body image becoming less important to women as they age.