WEEK 7: PHYSICAL SELF

The Physical Self: Body Image and Self Esteem Understanding the self includes
understanding the surroundings and what influences our outlook in our beauty. Culture
may seem to have an effect also on how people view themselves and how they construct
their images and boost their self-esteem. Physical aspect of the self may also provide
understanding and the importance of beauty.
The Impact of Culture on Body Image and Self-Esteem: The Importance of
Beauty
● After going through all the concepts and theories that may affect the
person’s view of his physical self, there’s another factor that strongly
impacts this perception, his cultural milieu. Culture is defined as a social
system that is characterized by the shared meanings that are attributed to
people and events by its members.
● There are a lot of movies in the past that are about the body. One of the
most successful horror movies of the 1950s entitled Invasion of the Body
Snatcher, wherein human beings were replaced with new bodies and
devoid human emotions. Another is the The Stepford Wives that took the
idea of body replacement. In this movie husbands were killing their wives
and replacing them with robots who look exactly like them, but perfectly
submissive. Some other movies about the body include Shallow Hal (2001),
Huge (2010), 200 pound Beauty (2010) and Imperfect (2019).

● The makeup of a body is a collection of cells, combined into organs, which

themselves operate in systems. In humans, that body typically takes on a
form with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. But the question is, is
there such a thing as a universal decontextualized body? The answer is no.
bodies are shaped in countless ways by culture, by society, and by the
experiences that are shared with a social and cultural context. Since it is
also shaped by history, there are always changing ideas about it. It can be
assumed that the body is contingent – meaning molded by factors outside
the body, and internalized into the physical being itself.
A significant aspect of culture that strongly influences adolescents who are in a face-to
face encounter with their physical selves is how their culture conceptualizes beauty.
GED 101: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Young adolescents are forced to adhere to society’s definition of beauty lest they be
labelled ugly or “pangit” in local dialect.
● This is what is called the social constructionist approach to understanding
the physical self. This suggests that beauty, weight, sexuality, or race do not simply
result from the collection of genes one inherited from one’s parents. Instead, these
bodily features only take on the meaning that they have. A person may have a certain
set of facial features, or weigh a certain number of pounds and attractiveness will
come from the time and place in which they live.
● These meanings occur within a set of culturally constructed power
relations which suggest that, for example, women must be attractive in
order to be valuable. But this process does not just happen after we enter
culture. How those features will be interpreted will then be shaped by
culture, but the features themselves will already be present. Meaning
what occurs is that once something comes to take on cultural meaning, it
becomes naturalized: people think that things are the way that they are
because they have always been that way. These meanings have been
created, and that they can change, and that there’s nothing natural at all.
Even something that seems to be rooted in the body as disability is
partially socially constructed.
● This differs from what might be called an essentialist view of the body.
Essentialism means that bodies are defined entirely by their biological make-up – bones,
muscles, hormones, and the like. Much of human behavior can also be reduced to many
of those biological functions, it is referred to by social scientists call a reductionist idea
that complex human behaviors can be reduced to something as simple as, for example,
hormones. This simply means that we cannot understand the biological organism
without first understanding social, cultural, and historical context in which it exists.
● Another example of how norms of masculinity and femininity shape not
just behavior, but public perceptions are those people who did activities of
the other gender. They were praised at the same time and criticized just by
doing what is not expected to their gender. With this, the idea that the body
is marked with culture and society is the term social skin to refer to the ways
in which social categories become inscribed onto physical body. Through the
social skin, the body becomes the symbolic stage on which dramas of
society are enacted. This idea is from the anthropologist Terence Turner
(1980).
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Another anthropologist, Mary Douglas (1973) said that the body is the most natural
symbol for and medium of classification, and thus rules associated with controlling the
body and its processes emerge as a powerful means of social control. She is the one who
centralized the analysis of the body focused on traditional societies. Therefore, the
physical body is a threat to the social body. Further, she finds that societies with strict
social limits would regard boundaries
with caution including bodily boundaries.
● In sociology, how the body
operates as a
focus and symbol has been understood as
well.
In the fourteenth to the seventeenth
centuries,
the civilization process includes the
beginning
of Europeans to internalize many of the
external forms of social control; however,
shame and embarrassment took place,
controlling their behaviors from within.
This
control of behavior from within was made as
theory by Erving Goffman (1982) which is
called the Dramaturgical theory. The theory
suggests that we are all actors on a stage, and
much of what we do is engage in impression
management during which we must monitor
and adjust our own behavior in accordance with how people want others to perceive
them.
● A woman is what she wears – this statement is from the work of Janes
Gaines on fashion (1990) which implies that women are often defined
completely by their clothing –. In this study, it suggests that people have
body images. Body image can be described as a representation of how
individuals think and feel about their own physical attributes. Body image is
both internal (personal) and external (society).

● This includes (1) how a person perceives his body, (2) how a person feels
about their physical appearance, (3) how a person thinks and talks to
themselves about their bodies, and (4) a sense of how other people view
their bodies. Though sometimes how a person looks has possibly never held
as much as societal importance or reflected so significantly on our perceived
self-worth.
● Body image is the mental representation one creates, but it may or may
not bear close relation to how others actually see you. Body image is subject
to all kinds of distortion from internal elements like our emotions, moods,
early experiences, attitudes of our parents, and much more. The mass
media has increasingly become a platform that reinforce cultural beliefs and
projects strong views on how we should look, that we as individuals often
unknowingly validate. With such strong societal scrutiny, it is easy to see
how the focus is on negative body image. Nevertheless, it strongly influences
behavior. Preoccupation with and distortions of body image are widespread
among

GED 101: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

American women (and to a lesser extent, among males), but they are driving forces in
eating disorders, feeding severe anxiety than can be assuaged only by dieting.
● Having a sense of understanding that healthy attractive bodies come in
many shapes and sizes, and that physical appearance says very little about
the character or value of a person, a person can have a positive body
image. How to get to this point depends on the acceptance and esteem
that a person has for himself. This can be related to the meaning of self-
esteem. In which, it is related to how much a person likes himself, how they
recognize or appreciate their individual character, qualities, skills, and
accomplishments. Like body image, self-esteem can also be based on how a
person thinks other people look at them as a person.

● Self-esteem is the overall evaluation that a person has of himself which

can be positive or negative, high or low. Self esteem is a measure of the
person’s self-worth based on some personal or social standard. It is a global
evaluative dimension of the self.
● Self-esteem is how valuable to himself and others he person perceives
himself to be. Needless to say, people with positive or high self-esteem
are happier, have a sense of
accomplishment and purpose and relate well
with others.
● The impact of culture on body image and self-
esteem has
been very crucial for sometimes people depend on this as
when they define beautiful. It has been assumed that
preferences for beauty are gradually learned through
 cultural transmission and exposure to contemporary media.
● Charles Darwin in 1871 became one of the first persons, if
not the first, to think and write extensively about human
beauty from a biological point of view, concluding that
there is no universal standard of beauty with respect to the
human body and attempts to determine underlying
dimensions of beauty are futile. However, in 1985, contrary to Darwin’s beliefs, Samuels
and Ewy showed that both 3-month-old and 6-month-old infants looked longer at male
and female faces previously rated as attractive by adults, suggesting that infants have
the cognitive ability to discriminate attractiveness. These findings have been further
supported, and it has even been shown that young infants show preferences for
attractive faces, measured by looking time, that transcends gender, race, and age.
Problems and other issues will arise when a person’s definition of body image is
different from the understanding of beauty.
● Young people put so much pressure on themselves to attain unrealistic
ideals to the point of risking mental and physical health is unacceptable.
The following are some aspects in culture that may have led to some
misconceptions: 1. Society’s ideal for the perfect physical form for men
and women. 2. Images of perfection brought by all types of media i.e print,
television, film, and internet. 3. Since a standard has been set by

GED 101: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

society and reinforced by the media, any
characteristic that does not conform to
the
standard is labelled as ugly. Body
diversity in
size and structure due to genetic
heritability is
not tolerated.
● These misconceptions strongly
affect how the
young form their body image and its
influence
on their self-esteem. Knowing that
adolescence
is the period where self-identity is
formed, it is
important for adults in the environment to
listen to these young people and provide proper
guidance and support.
● Yes, beauty is important. But being beautiful
still depends how a person defines beauty and the standards he sets to meet this
definition. It is a big mistake to base beauty on some else’s standard. People are
different and each one is uniquely beautiful.
References:
Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding
the Self. Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House Inc.
Douglas, M (1973) Self-Evidence. Accessed July 24, 2020.
https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/66916_book_item_66916.pdf
Gaines, J (1980). Material Possession. Accessed July 24, 2020.
https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/452/452_chapter_02.pdf
Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi
Publishing House, Inc.

ACTIVITIES ON PHYSICAL SELF

This section aims to reinforce your understanding of some of the topics covered in Week
7 through the two activities below. ACTIVITY #7: BIRTH OF A BEAUTY (30 points)
A. Reflect on your own personal concept of what for you is a real Beauty. Use the
format below. Direction: 1. Cut out or Download a picture of a person you consider
to be beautiful and put it on box number 1 2. Cut out or Download your own picture
put it inside box number 2. 3. Below each of the pictures describe what for you is
beautiful about one each of them and why. Limit your answers into 5-7 sentences
each.
GED 101: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
 ACTIVITY #8: HOW IT AFFECTS ME? (15 points) B. List down at least 10
commercial or movies, or tv shows, that you think affects the concept of beauty and
self-esteem of people nowadays.
1._____________ 6. _____________ 2. ____________ 7.
_____________ 3. ____________ 8. _____________ 4. ____________ 9.
_____________ 5. ____________ 10. ____________

GED 101: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF