Latinx Women Reclaiming Their Bodies and Self-Love

According to Stokes, Clemens, & Rios (2016), historically Latinx women have been assumed to embrace a more positive body shape and image than their Caucasian counterparts. Much like African American culture, Latino culture has been thought to be more accepting of a fuller, more voluptuous figure. However, this acceptance may have been overstated and does not fully embrace the complexities of how Latinx women relate to their bodies.

Other studies have linked media images which depict a discrepancy between body image and actual experience of the self (such as models with a substantially lower BMI than the average American woman) as a source of low self-esteem (Stokers, et al., 2016). Higher rates of media consumption are associated with higher rates of body dissatisfaction in Latinx women. Moreover, internalization was associated positively with social comparison, and social comparison was associated positively with body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness (Stokes, et al., 2016, p.7). In fact, Latinx women are just as likely to have eating disorders as their white counterparts, but are far less likely to be diagnosed, because of the lack of awareness among clinicians and the common perception that women of culture are less weight-conscious (Reichard, 2015).

Latinx women may find themselves in a double...

On one hand, they are subjected to unrealistic standards of contemporary culture regarding very thin bodies, and the need...…Americanas, all of her life she felt torn between the demand by her parents not to be a gringa yet her work and larger American society stressed the need to assimilate, and she was forced to forge her own, unique path (Reichard, 2015). All Latinx women will experience such pressures differently, as Latinx who are very close (or not) to their parents, from rural versus environments, or who have strong ties to their homeland may embrace their identities in different ways. Sexual orientation, religion, children, profession, and other statuses will likewise impact the complex ways in which women navigate their identities, but, at least, the diversity and complexity are now being more acknowledged than in the past, and women…