Women's Obsession with Looks Is Costly.

"How do I look?" Even if the answer is "Great," just asking the question can have a harmful effect on a woman's emotional health and mental performance, according to a University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, study. Social psychologist Barbara L. Fredrickson maintains that the common obsession with appearing young, thin, and beautiful isn't harmless. The "psychological costs of raising girls in a culture that persistently objectifies the female body" socialize women to adopt a third-person perspective on their bodies.

This perspective is more common among women than men, according to the findings by Fredrickson and other researchers from Duke University, Durham, N.C., and Colorado College, Colorado Springs. It produces a strong feeling of shame about their bodies and results in a peculiar pattern of restrained eating that may be linked with full-blown eating disorders.

Just asking yourself how you look, constantly checking your appearance in mirrors, adjusting a strap, or tugging on a skirt uses mental resources that are, by consequence, unavailable for challenging mental tasks, she maintains. This...