A Comparative Study of Body Image Issues in Young Adult Women and Middle-aged Women
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This study delves into the body image issues among women as they progress in their age. Body image is an evolving research field. Body image is the subjective view of one’s appearance. With the intervention of social media and mass media, body image concerns among people are growing and has significantly contributed to behaviors like social comparisons, public avoidance, and causes an array of physical and psychological ailments. The study aims to provide a comparative insight on what factors affect body image concerns among women of different age groups, particularly young adult (18-25 years) and middle-aged (45-59 years) women. The study particularly considers these two age groups because priorities are often different among the two age groups. It would therefore be interesting to investigate what specific body image related concerns exist for each group, what factors influence their concerns, how they differently respond to them, and what can be done to help them having a better body image. The study requires basic knowledge of psychology and would be of help to not only academicians but industry too. The beauty, cosmetic and personal care industry is expected to have the maximum advantage of the study as its findings may help them to devise their marketing mix strategies. The study is based entirely on secondary data, and involves a comprehensive reading of journal articles, magazines, newspaper articles, books, and other sources of online data. A systematic review of available literature through PRISMA would be conducted. Research in this domain is generally constrained to studying a particular age group in men and women. Hence, the study would attempt to fill the existing literary gap.
To identify the factors that cause body image issues among young adult and middle aged women
Purpose: Body is a serious and fast growing concern among women, especially those in middle and young adult age. It has been amplified in the recent years due to social media usage, mainstream media influence, cultural and societal expectations, discrimination, and objectification. It has a range of implications like anxiety and distress, and reduced quality of life. The purpose of this goal is to identify the exact body image issues prevailing in these groups and the factors responsible for them.
Method: Systematic review, critical review and literature review methods will be used to identify the factors.
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The growing concern of body image issues among young adult and middle aged women
Aim: With the intervention of social media and mass media, body image concerns are growing, especially among females. The aim here is to describe what exactly the body image issues are and why these are emerging as a significant concern among young adult and middle-aged women.
Method: An in-depth literature review of 10-15 journal articles to be undertaken from secondary data. The articles that include a definition of body image and a description of body image issues in contemporary times need to be included. The emphasis should be laid on identifying the similarities and differences in opinions. Furthermore, only those articles to be included which are dated 2018 and post that. A similar investigation for identifying the factors causing a growing concern among young adult and middle-aged women should also be done.
Structure: To achieve this milestone, write a 1000 words article which will include text about body image concerns among women. Use at least 10 references dated post 2018. Make use of figures and tables wherever appropriate (but do not copy paste them from any source). Structure of the article should be as follows:
- Introduction- concept and definition of body image
- Body image issues that women in selected age groups confront
- Similarities and differences among body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
- Reasons why these issues are a growing concern among young adult and middle-aged women
- Conclusion- Present a comparative table of the identified similarities and differences in body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
- References/ bibliography
Systematic review of factors causing body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
Aim: Body image is a growing concern among many people today, especially women. This milestone aims to identify the prominent factors that are responsible for causing body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women through systematic review. A few factors can be social media influence, mass media, family pressure etc.
Method: Systematic review of past literature, i.e. research papers on factors causing body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women. Review only those studies which contain some form of empirical analysis (i.e., primary data analysis) and were published in A category journals after 2016. Use PRISMA diagram to explain your studies selection criteria. Review at least 15 studies. The findings of these studies must be presented in the form of a table with the following columns:
- Author (year)
- Aim of the study
- Methodology
- Factors causing body image issues
- Limitations of the study
Structure: to achieve this milestone, write an article in the below structure.
- Introduction to anticipated factors causing body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
- Methodology: Introduce your chosen methodology, i.e., systematic review of literature. Explain the element you will focus on, i.e., factors causing body image issues in young adult and middle aged women today. Also briefly state the importance of choosing this method. The contents of this section will be:
- Studies selection process: Clearly articulate the criteria used for selecting studies such as keywords used, and sources or libraries used.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria: explain the criteria employed to include or exclude studies, like year of publication, language, format, publication credibility, etc.
- PRISMA diagram: Present the PRISMA diagram to visually depict the systematic review process and highlight the number of studies at each stage.
- Analysis: This is the main section presenting the systematic review. It will contain:
- Systematic review table (main part)
- Discussion- summarise the findings of the studies holistically
- Conclusion: summarize the key findings from the review.
- References/ bibliography
Requirements: since this article is technical in nature, it is mandatory to have knowledge and experience of systematic reviews.
Effects of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women (systematic review)
Aim: Body image is a growing concern among many people today, especially women. This milestone aims to investigate the effects of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women through a systematic review. The aim here is to comprehend the similarities and differences among body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women.
Method: Systematic review of past literature, i.e. research papers on the effects of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women. Review only those studies which contain some form of empirical analysis (i.e., primary data analysis) and were published in A category journals after 2016. Use PRISMA diagram to explain your studies selection criteria. Review at least 15 studies. The findings of these studies must be presented in the form of a table with the following columns:
- Author (year)
- Aim of the study
- Methodology
- Effects of body image issues (particularly on lifestyle choices and psychology)
- Limitations of the study
Structure: to achieve this milestone, write an article in the below structure.
- Introduction to anticipated factors causing body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
- Methodology: Introduce your chosen methodology, i.e., systematic review of literature. Explain the element you will focus on, i.e., effect of body image issues in young adult and middle aged women today. Also briefly state the importance of choosing this method. The contents of this section will be:
- Studies selection process: Clearly articulate the criteria used for selecting studies such as keywords used, and sources or libraries used.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria: explain the criteria employed to include or exclude studies, like year of publication, language, format, publication credibility, etc.
- PRISMA diagram: Present the PRISMA diagram to visually depict the systematic review process and highlight the number of studies at each stage.
- Analysis: This is the main section presenting the systematic review. It will contain:
- Systematic review table (main part)
- Discussion- summarise the findings of the studies holistically
- Conclusion: summarize the key findings from the review.
- References/ bibliography
Requirements: since this milestone is technical in nature, it is mandatory to have knowledge and experience of systematic reviews.
Response to body image issues by middle aged and young adult women
Note: You cannot proceed with this milestone unless the previous milestone ‘Effects of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women (systematic review)’ is completed.
Aim: Body image is a growing concern among many people today, especially women. Different women react differently to these issues. The previous milestone examined the effect of these issues on women. This milestone aims to explore the different ways in which young adult and middle aged women respond to body image issues.
Method: A literature review involving a thorough examination of at least 15 relevant studies and scholarly articles published after 2018. Each of these studies must specifically delve into the different ways in which young adult and middle aged women react to body image issues. Ensure to connect the responses/ reactions to the ‘effects’ in the previous milestone. Emphasis should be laid on identifying the similarities and differences in opinions.
Structure: To achieve this milestone, prepare a 1000 words article in the following structure.
- Introduction- responses to body image issues by young adult and middle-aged women.
- General responses by women to body image issues, including disengaging themselves from negative discussions, seeking expert counselling etc.
- Similarities and differences among responses to body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
- Discussion- Present a comparative table of the identified similarities and differences in responses to body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women.
- Conclusion
- References/ bibliography
Critical review of strategies recommended by professionals for managing body image issues faced by women
Aim: Body image is a growing concern among many people today, especially women. Over the decades many strategies have been developed by healthcare professionals, scholars, and renowned academicians to manage body image issues. The aim of this milestone is to adopt a critical stance on some of these strategies and comprehend their merits and demerits.
Method:
Critical review does not only mean negative criticism. Your critique must be sufficiently substantiated and supported with facts. For example, if you think that a particular recommendation does not work then give proof with figures and references to justify your point.
In case of this milestone, select 15 journals which have explored the issue of body image among young adult and middle aged women and recommended strategies to manage the issue. Perform an in-depth critical review of the articles. Emphasis should be laid on relative merits and demerits of these strategies. Furthermore, only those articles to be included which are dated 2018 and post that. Examples of some articles are here, here, here.
Structure:
To achieve this milestone write a 1000 words article in the following format:
- Introduction- Introduce the strategies recommended by healthcare professionals, researchers, and academicians for managing body image issues faced by young adult and middle-aged women.
- Critique- A critical analysis of the strategies. Do they work in reality? Why or why not? Provide evidence with references for your critical assessment.
- Discussion- Present a table summarizing the relative merits and demerits of strategies recommended to manage body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women.
- Conclusion
- References/ bibliography
To assess the outcomes of women’s response to body image issues and recommend ways to improve them
Purpose: Women respond to body image issues differently. For instance, while some resort to excessive dieting, others develop long-term eating disorders like bulimia. Some even seek professional support. While their goal is the same, i.e., to handle the issue without letting it affect their mental health, outcomes vary. The purpose of this goal is to assess the major ways in which women in young adult and middle age categories respond to body image issues and their outcomes, so that suitable ways of handling them can be recommended.
Method: in this goal meta-analysis using CMA (Comprehensive Meta-Analysis) will be performed on 35-40 recent empirical studies.
Prior experience and knowledge of CMA software, meta-analysis and data analysis is necessary to accomplish the milestones in this goal.
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Meta-analysis for examining the outcomes of women’s response to body image issues
Note 1: This milestone cannot be achieved unless all the milestones in Goal 1 are completed.
Note 3: Prior experience in writing research methodologies and meta-analysis is mandatory for working on this milestone.
Aim: This is the first milestone in Goal 2 of this study. Overall, the goal is to use secondary data, i.e., empirical studies to examine how body image issues are affecting women in young adult and middle age categories. The purpose of this particular milestone is to explain the methodological process undertaken to use CMA software for meta-analysis and achieve this goal.
Background: Meta-analysis of 40 studies will be performed using CMA software. However, this milestone does NOT involve any analysis. In this milestone you must only:
- Explain the methodology of the analysis
- Select 40 studies which will be used for the meta-analysis.
Method: To select the 40 studies, ensure that they fulfil the following criteria.
- They must be published after 2015
- The objective of all the papers must to examine the impact of body image issues on young adult and middle aged women. Country can be any.
- They must have quantitative data analysis and a hypothesis for testing the impact. Any statistical test could be used for the hypothesis testing like SEM, correlation and regression, as long as it has hypothesis testing.
Next, to explain the methodology, do not explain any theory. This means that avoid the meaning and definitions of concepts like ‘secondary data’ etc. Stick to the justification of your approach only.
Structure: to achieve this milestone, write a 1000 words article in the following structure.
- Introduction to the findings of the previous milestone “Effects of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women (systematic review)”.
- Methodology: Introduce your chosen methodology, i.e., Meta-analysis using CMA (Comprehensive Meta-Analysis). Explain the element you will focus on, i.e., studies which have given some recommendations for managing body image issues among young adult and middle aged women. Also briefly state the importance of choosing this method. The contents of this section will be:
- Data search strategy
- Sources of data
- Studies selection process: Clearly articulate the criteria used for selecting studies such as keywords used, and sources or libraries used.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria: explain the criteria employed to include or exclude studies, like year of publication, language, format, publication credibility, etc.
- Study extraction process
- Table showing the following columns of your selected 40 papers
- Author (year)
- Title of the paper
- Aim of the paper
- Methodology used
- Data analysis procedure used
- References/ bibliography
Requirements: since this article is technical in nature, it is mandatory to have knowledge and experience of meta-analysis and writing methodologies.
Note: Submit the article in word document format and the pdf of all selected 40 studies in a zip folder.
Common body image issues among young adult and middle-aged women
Note 1: This milestone cannot be achieved until all the previous milestones in Goal 1 and Goal 2 have been completed.
Note 2: This milestone involves meta-analysis in CMA software. Therefore it is mandatory to have CMA software (trial version or latest version) and knowledge of how to use it.
Note 3: This milestone requires 40 research papers which were collected in the previous milestone ‘Meta-analysis for examining the outcomes of women’s response to body image issues. Please get in touch with your module creator for obtaining a copy of the papers.
Note 4: Our CMA module has all the articles to guide you for conducting the meta-analysis test.
Aim: The purpose of this milestone is to perform meta-analysis on 40 papers which statistically and empirically examine the impact of body image issues on young adult and middle aged women.
Method of meta-analysis: Follow the below steps to conduct meta-analysis of the 40 papers using CMA software.
- Perform the analysis using the common criteria among selected papers
- Derive the Z-value, p-value and the other statistical values
- Assess the mean effect size, confidence interval range, Z-value, Q-statistic value, I-squared statistic value, and Tau statistic value
- Present the true effect graph and assess it to show distribution of true effects based on selected studies
Structure: To achieve this milestone, present the findings from meta-analysis in the form of a 1500 words article following the below structure.
- Introduction- Reiterate the study problem (refer to the milestones in Goal 1) and explain the included 40 papers and purpose of the analysis.
- Analysis- findings of the meta-analysis test, especially explain z-value, q-statistic and true effect size. Represent findings in the form of text explanation and image generated in CMA software.
- Discussion- Common body image issues among young adult and middle aged women
- Findings from the selected 40 papers
- Common patterns/ themes identified in the papers
- Concluding paragraph- connect the findings to the original objectives of the study. Refer to the milestones in Goal 1 to comprehensively build the connection.
- References/ bibliography
Effect of body image issues on young adult and middle-aged women
Note 1: This milestone cannot be achieved until all the previous milestones in Goal 1 and Goal 2 have been completed.
Note 2: Meta-analysis test is conducted in the previous milestone i.e. ‘Common body image issues among young adult and middle aged women’. Please get in touch with your module creator for obtaining a copy of the results.
Background: So far in this study, a review of causes, effects and recommended strategies for body image issues among women has been done. In the previous milestone ‘Common body image issues among young adult and middle aged women’, meta-analysis was also performed and results of one aspect found in the 40 analysed papers was explained.
Aim: The purpose of this milestone is to analyse the findings of meta-analysis (performed in previous milestone) further to analyse the effect of body image issues on young adult and middle aged women as found in the selected 40 papers.
Structure: To achieve this milestone, present the findings from meta-analysis in the form of a 1000 words article following the below structure.
- Introduction- Reiterate the findings of meta-analysis (refer to the milestone ‘Common body image issues among young adult and middle aged women’) and explain the purpose of the present article.
- Analysis- Effect of body image issues among young adult and middle aged women
- Findings from the selected 40 papers
- Common patterns/ themes identified in the papers
- Concluding paragraph- connect the findings to the original objectives of the study. Refer to the milestones in Goal 1 to comprehensively build the connection.
- References/ bibliography
Recommendations for improving body image issues among women
Note: This is the concluding milestone of the study. You cannot proceed with it unless all the previous milestones in Goals 1 and 2 have been completed.
Background: So far in this study we have reviewed the reasons for body image issues among young adult and middle aged women, how they affect them, and treatment/ strategies recommended by healthcare professionals and academicians to manage the issue. Meta-analysis of 40 studies is performed, and the results are explained in the previous milestones in ‘Goal 2’.
Aim: The purpose of the overall study was to find out how body image issues are affecting women, and whether the recommended strategies and psychological treatments for body image issues are working. The aim of this milestone is to build on the critical review conducted in the milestone ‘Critical review of strategies recommended by professionals for managing body image issues faced by women’ of Goal 1 to recommend suitable strategies of our own, which can minimise body image issues.
Method: Go through all the previous milestones. Understand the findings of the primary and meta-analysis and connect them. Reflect on the common findings and critical review to understand why certain strategies are not working (if at all).
Structure: To achieve this milestone, prepare a 1000 words article in the following structure.
- Introduction to the objectives of this study
- Discussion of findings from secondary data
- Discussion of findings from meta-analysis
- Suggested strategies
- Concluding paragraph- shed light on how this study can be taken further by other researchers. Also explain how the findings can be put to practice by healthcare professionals to reduce the problem of body image among women. Also how social media usage must be regulated.