We often worry that other people think we are fat, when in fact they are not bothered one way or the other. The result of this belief though makes us self-conscious and feel that we ought to lose weight in order to meet the expectations of other people. And when we fail, we feel we have let them down, as well as feeling that we have failed ourselves.

Recent research sought to examine the role women's husbands may play in determining their body satisfaction. 172 (mean age = 37.53 years) European American women were assessed (using the Body Figure Rating Scale) for their own body satisfaction, their perceptions of their husbands' satisfaction with their bodies, and their husbands' actual satisfaction with their bodies. The women's weight status was assessed using body mass index (BMI). Results indicated that wives were much more dissatisfied with their bodies than were their husbands and that wives thought their husbands were much more dissatisfied with their bodies than the husbands actually were.

Another result of the study suggested that the wives' BMI didn't affect their husband's satisfaction with their wives bodies nearly as much as the women themselves. They were much more concerned about their being fat and felt their husbands shared this concern.

What can we make of this? Women as a whole are pretty tough on themselves in relation to their weight and shape. We tend to project this dissatisfaction onto other people and then imagine them thinking hurtful thoughts. It is another way of beating ourselves up.

If you are overweight, it is a great idea to lose weight. But do it for the good of your health, rather than to achieve some imaginary goal of pleasing someone else.

When Rubens was painting, voluptuous women were considered beautiful. Attractiveness stereotypes have been with us for centuries, but the particular ideal changes with fashion. The current beauty ideal is unrealistically thin. Using younger and younger models, with immature body shapes, demonstrates how unrealistic it is. And as the beauty ideal gets thinner, real women have been getting bigger. So the difference between ideal and actual just keeps growing.

In times of famine, people tend to get thin. When food is freely available, people get fat. We in the Western world have easy access to plentiful supplies of the widest range of palatable foods at very low prices. Thus the social pressure to achieve unrealistically thin bodies is even harder because at the same time we are receiving messages to eat. Particularly messages to eat for fun.

To help you maintain a healthy body image in a healthy body, try hypnosis.

In part, it is social pressure coming at us through the media, because even people with a healthy bodyweight want to lose weight.

The charity, Eating Disorder Association, has linked up with Dove, who do the commercials with women of all shapes and sizes, to promote understanding of how the media affects our body image and our self esteem through Body Talk. It is primarily targeted at young people, but there is good material that we can all benefit from.

We all need to understand this, as a negative body image and low self-esteem really does affect our lives deeply.