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is, in western society, directly related to social class with working class women, who have fewer resources and time to invest in cultivating their bodies, being more likely to express alienation from their body image.

Bourdieu (1984), for example, has analyzed critical differences in ideas about body image across class and gender lines in Western society. Illustratively, he notes (206) that the percentage of women who consider themselves to be below average in beauty or think that they look older than they really are is directly related to social class, with upper class women feeling 'superior both in the intrinsic, natural beauty of their bodies and in the art of self-embellishment' with working class women, who have fewer resources and time to invest in cultivating their bodies, being more likely to express alienation from their body image. In that weight is linked culturally in the United States with self control and with personal value, the tendency of upper class individuals to be slimmer than members of the working class (a reversal of nineteenth century weight distribution patterns) serves not only as a visual marker of one's class standing but as an embodied affirmation and constant reminder of the innate superiority of dominant social classes.

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