An example of the visual stimuli used as part of the study which asked children and young adults to rate body sizes after visual exposure to different body sizes and weights. Credit: Durham University.

Our perceptions of body image are shaped by what we see from as early as seven years old, according to new research.

These body ideals continue to be influenced by visual exposure to different body weights into adulthood, according to the Durham University psychologists who led the research.

The results show that people’s perceptions of body weight are flexible and adult-like from seven years of age onwards and have implications for our understanding of body size and the perceptions, and possible misperceptions, of weight in health and wellbeing.

Professor Lynda Boothroyd, from Durham University’s Department of Psychology, carried out a first-of-its-kind study to examine the flexibility of body weight perceptions in children and young adults.

The study found that children as young as seven years old adjust how heavy or light they rate other people’s bodies after seeing a series of pictures of low- or high-weight bodies.

The analysis uncovered a significant shift in weight perceptions after exposure to images depicting various body weights.

The results showed that the manner in which our brains represent what constitutes ‘heavy’ or ‘light’ develops at a very young age.

Media influences

The research, which involved more than 200 individuals aged seven through to adulthood, also indicated that media influences known to shape adult body perceptions can almost certainly impact children to the same degree, starting from early childhood and continuing to evolve into adulthood.

Lead author, Professor Lynda Boothroyd said: “It has been clear for many years that we need to be wary about visual media which present only a narrow range of bodies, because this affects adults’ body perceptions.

“Now we know that’s true for children, too. Even very neutral images can adjust their ideas about what is heavy or thin if they see enough of the same kind of body.”

The experimental study adds to the wealth of research at Durham University on body perception and body ideals in both children and adults.

Boothroyd’s team at Durham has previously shown that adults’ ideas about what is an ‘attractive’ body weight or muscle mass are affected by visual experience.

This includes the effect of television access on body perceptions among remote communities in Latin America and, in a separate study, finding that White Western women have lower body appreciation and experience greater pressure from the media to be thin compared to Black Nigerian and Chinese women across all ages.

Looking ahead, the team is now investigating how best to address body image concerns in young adults across the globe in a major £2m (€2.5m) research project and developing novel play-based techniques to investigate children’s understandings of body weight and body ideals from a younger age.

Boothroyd added: “Researchers often assume that children’s body perceptions and their ideas about body image work the same way as adults.

“We’ve shown that that’s true, down to seven years, for basic perceptual impacts on body weight perception.

“But there’s more to explore in how that converts into their own body image and their own feelings about weight.”

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.