--- title: Men And Women Are Equally Unhappy with Their Looks description: Researchers at Chapman University found that men and women are pretty equal when it comes to body appearance and body dysmorphia. canonical: https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/ author: Megan Lasher article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-31T17:53:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:02:37.297Z og:title: Men and Women are Equally Unhappy with How They Look og:description: Men aren't immune to body-image issues og:url: https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49718fad3661e7c/698895a62dce0134749e94a7/body-image-men-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4843 og:image:height: 2724 og:image:alt: smashed mirror og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Men and Women are Equally Unhappy with How They Look twitter:description: Men aren't immune to body-image issues twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49718fad3661e7c/698895a62dce0134749e94a7/body-image-men-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Men and Women are Equally Unhappy with How They Look, Study Says > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher May 31, 2016 5:53 PM UTC  smashed mirror smashed mirror Soren Hald—Getty Images by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher May 31, 2016 5:53 PM UTC Body image issues are often discussed as exclusively affecting women, but [a new study](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144516301498) shows men are about as likely to be insecure about their looks. The study, published in the June issue of the journal _Body Image_ and [reported by _Cosmopolitan_](http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a59152/study-men-women-appearance-weight-satisfcation/), found that only 28% of men say they’re “extremely satisfied” with their appearance, comapred to 26% of women. To arrive at this conclusion, researches at Chapman University posted surveys on NBCNews.com and Today.comand heard back from 12,176 respondents. It’s worth noting that people had to opt in to participating in the survey, so the self-selecting sample is not necessarily representative of the general population. Not surprisingly, weight was closely tied to people’s body image. “Few men (24%) and women (20%) felt very or extremely satisfied with their weight, and only half felt somewhat to extremely satisfied,” researcher David Frederick, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University, said in a [statement](https://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2016/05/10/chapman-university-research-shows-that-body-image-is-strongly-linked-to-overall-life-satisfaction-and-feelings-about-romantic-relationships-in-national-u-s-study/) about the findings. “These findings are consistent with the emphasis placed on the importance of being slender for women and for appearing athletic and/or lean for men. It would seem therefore, that we still have a long way to go before we achieve the goal of Americans being truly happy with their bodies.” [_Follow Motto on Facebook._](https://www.facebook.com/mottoworkplaylive/) Researchers say their findings go beyond the scale or the mirror: “People who were more satisfied with their weight and appearance were more satisfied with their life overall, even when controlling for other contributors,” they wrote in the study. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/"},"headline":"Men and Women are Equally Unhappy with How They Look, Study Says","datePublished":"2016-05-31T17:53:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:02:37.297Z","description":"Men aren't immune to body-image issues","url":"https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/","keywords":["motto","News"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49718fad3661e7c/698895a62dce0134749e94a7/body-image-men-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan Lasher","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49718fad3661e7c/698895a62dce0134749e94a7/body-image-men-women.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"smashed mirror","caption":"smashed mirror","creditText":"Soren Hald—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4352400/men-women-body-image/","name":"Men and Women are Equally Unhappy with How They Look, Study Says"}}]}] ```