February 2017
Featured in this insight: Media & publishing, Public health & wellbeing
Body image more important than health for women, survey suggests: A recent health survey by the website, Make Your Switch, has revealed that women are six times more likely to make their body weight a priority over their overall health.
The survey of 1,000 men and women aged between 15 and 34 revealed that 44 per cent of women often worry about their body image or weight, but just 7 per cent were concerned about their health.
Further to this, the survey also found that around two in three respondents were negatively affecting their long-term health by not paying attention to the negative side-effects that come with their dieting or weight loss. Perhaps even more shockingly, 38 per cent of those who took part in the survey said that they were willing to sacrifice their mental health through extreme dieting if it meant that they could hit their goal weight.
Of the participants, 27.6 per cent said that they had been diagnosed with insomnia and a further 22.4 per cent said that they had experienced regular dizziness.
15 per cent of the respondents were found to have heart disease.
Of the female respondents, 86 said that they had stopped having periods as a result of extreme dieting.
The survey conductors, Make Your Switch, have attributed the disregard towards health, in favour of being slim, to faddy diets and weight-loss aides that are plugged by celebrities online, as well as social media trends, such as the thigh gap and the 44 paper challenge (whereby young girls were holding a piece of A4 paper in front of their waists to compare themselves to it). Supporting this theory, 28 per cent of the people in the survey admitted to being influenced by these kinds of trends.
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