‘I'm not bad for my age’: the meaning of body size and eating in the lives of older women

Abstract

Empirical research on women's feelings about their body size has traditionally focused on adolescents and young adults and has been carried out within the framework of experimental social psychology. This article examines the subjective meanings of body size for a sample of 12 women aged between 63 and 75 years via an analysis of in-depth interview data. The findings suggest that body size has a complexity of contradictory meanings for older women, which are shaped in relation to social discourses surrounding beauty ideals, gender identity and constructions of age and ageing. Many of the older women were dissatisfied with their body size, highlighting the cross-generational influence of a ‘thin ideal’ of size. At the same time, however, the women adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards body size and eating, rejecting the pressures surrounding size and food. This attitude was related to the women's constructions of this stage of their lives as a time of freedom, their awareness of personal mortality, and their beliefs about the inevitability of weight-gain as they grew older. The findings are discussed in relation to feminist approaches to body size and gerontological research on age/gender stereotypes.