By Krista Marie Clark Cline, Cassidy Spencer
Abstract
This project analyzed how the physical standards of perfection are perpetuated among pregnant women and mothers. Given that pop culture interest in the pregnant and postpartum body has increased dramatically over the past twenty years, this project sought to examine how messages about weight gain during pregnancy are most powerfully communicated to women. Using Michel Foucault’s (1975) Panopticonic stage of punishment, post-structuralist surveillance, we suggest that while the media remains an important influence in disseminating messages about physical perfection to women, interpersonal surveillance and surveillance of self through guilt should not be overlooked as powerful indicators of these physical standards of perfection. Results are discussed in light of Foucault’s conceptualization of post-structuralist surveillance.
Key words: Foucault, pregnant women, women’s bodies, surveillance
Introduction
Modern motherhood is characterized by almost unattainable standards of perfection. Mothers are expected to be completely devoted to their children while also meeting the cultural ideals of health, appearance, and parenting. These ideals are reinforced not only by the media, but also through surveillance and judgement from other mothers (Henderson et al., 2016). At the same time, while mothers are struggling to be perfect parents, they are also held to unattainable standards of beauty, which is no surprise given the enormous value Western culture places on physical appearance (Grogan, 2008; Williams et al., 2017). Indeed, the past two decades have been marked by an increased popular culture focus upon pregnant and postpartum bodies. This heightened cultural interest in and objectification of pregnant and postpartum body may date back to 1991, when an image of pregnant and nude Demi Moore was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine (Earle, 2003). Certainly, if one were to look through popular press magazines, it becomes clear that in recent years, this cultural curiosity with the topic of pregnancy and the pregnant body has not diminished. In June 1999, Cindy Crawford appeared pregnant and nude on the cover of W in a pose strikingly similar to that assumed by Demi Moore eight years prior, and popular press magazines regularly feature articles documenting the pregnancies of celebrities – including the tactics invoked by these high-profile women to lose baby weight fast – and providing advice on how to look great during pregnancy. More recently, with the prominence of social media, there seems to be a promotion of what could be called the fit pregnancy ideal, where women who remain thin, toned, and highly active throughout pregnancy are celebrated. There is also the pressure to bounce back quickly after pregnancy. Postpartum bodies are often portrayed as temporary bodies that should quickly return to their pre-pregnancy appearance.
This rhetoric surrounding the appearance of both the pregnant and postpartum body is represented powerfully through the media, but the purpose of this project is to analyze the prevalence of such standards of physical perfection among pregnant women and mothers themselves. Indeed, we suggest that it is not only the media that upholds these unrealistic standards of perfection, but that women are perpetuating standards of physical perfection through informal means. In taking this approach, we apply Michel Foucault’s conception of surveillance. Foucault (1975) suggested that in the 20th century, punishment became post-structuralist, which means that we no longer need social institutions to enforce social control over our behavior. In fact, Foucault suggests that we “surveil” ourselves through different means; women surveil one another through interpersonal communication and observation, ranging anywhere from receiving the guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy from their obstetrician, to reading about celebrity moms’ post-pregnancy weight loss and return to “normal” size after baby. When applied to pregnant and postpartum bodies, Foucault’s perspective suggests that constant surveillance perpetuates the standards of perfection promulgated by media rhetoric surrounding pregnancy and weight gain, and can occur on both a formal (i.e., obstetric guidelines) and informal (i.e., interpersonal conversations with other women, consuming media messages) level. Therefore, we suggest that it is not “the media” per se, or any given social institution that perpetuates this pressure of perfection, but that women are also surveilling on an individual level. At the same time that mothers surveil other mothers, they also use these interactions to surveil themselves and their own feelings about self-image and weight gain during pregnancy, as well as during the postpartum period. The purpose of the present study is to examine the prevalence of other women surveilling pregnant women as it exists among modern women and mothers, applying a Foucauldian framework that suggests that the most powerful form of surveillance is perpetuated on an interpersonal (i.e., woman to woman), not structural (i.e., media to woman), level.
Background
Gestational weight gain is a key maternal and perinatal health indicator. Gaining weight outside the recommended ranges is associated with short- and long-term risks to mothers and infants, including an increased risk for gestational diabetes, cesarean delivery, childhood obesity, postpartum weight retention (Incollingo Rodriguez & Nagpal, 2021; Vanstone et al., 2017). At the same time, pregnant women are embedded in social environments in which body norms, appearance ideals, and normative expectations create scrutiny and comparison. A growing body of literature examines how weight stigma, body image, social media, family, friends, healthcare providers, and societal norms contribute to experiences of shame or pressure about weight in pregnancy (Incollingo Rodriguez & Nagpal, 2021; Rosenbaum, Gillen, & Hutson, 2024). However, empirical work explicitly documenting pregnant people surveilling each other around gestational weight gain is more limited.
Clinical guidelines (e.g. Institute of Medicine/National Academies) set out weight gain recommendations based on pre-pregnancy BMI to optimize maternal and infant health outcomes. Nonetheless, many women in high-income countries gain more than recommended (Vanstone et al., 2017). Norms around what is “appropriate” weight gain are medically defined, but women’s understanding and internalization of these norms vary considerably.
In low-income settings or among marginalized populations, perceptions can be further complicated by limited resources, cultural norms about food, family expectations, and prior weight status. For example, one qualitative study of women in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program in the U.S. reported that women felt pressure from family/spouse to “eat for two,” but also concern about gaining too much. Knowledge about weight gain goals was often minimal or inconsistent and discussions with health care providers about gestational weight gain often lagged behind, or were reactive rather than preventive (Vanstone et al., 2017).
In U.S. culture, being overweight or obese is stigmatized negatively (Arora, et al., 2019; Brownell et al. 2005; Falkner et al. 1999), and this is especially true for women (Bordo 2003; Ferrante et al., 2016; Grogan 2008; Kilbourne 1994). There is ample evidence to suggest that contemporary popular culture constructs the thin and toned female body as that which is most socially desirable (Bordo 2003; Faludi 1991; Hendricks 2002; McKinley, 2017; Posavac et al., 2001; Silverstein et al, 1986). The current cultural female beauty ideal mandates a lean and toned body, with slim hips, full breasts, and readily visible hip and rib bones (McKinley, 2017; Polivy, et al., 2022). Of course, these beauty standards can be tricky for pregnant people because on the one hand, it is a neoliberal form of risk reduction for pregnant people. On the other hand, the establishment of “normal” standards is used as a means of surveillance. The results of this surveillance is that some pregnant people are criticized by not adhering to these standards well enough.
For many women, contemporary beauty standards, whether the traditional thin ideal or the newer slim-thick ideal, are largely biologically unattainable, in part because bodies promoted in the media are frequently digitally edited, surgically enhanced, or represent weights below medically healthy ranges (Bozsik et al. 2018; Fardouly & Holland 2018). These ideals contribute to widespread body dissatisfaction, as exposure to idealized images on social media reliably increases body shame, self-objectification, and disordered eating urges (Castellanos et al., 2023; Portingale et al., 2024). As a result, many women experience chronic dissatisfaction with their bodies. Attempting to maintain a culturally feminine identity through strict adherence to thinness or appearance-focused norms has been linked to anxiety, depression, and eating pathology (Tiggemann 2011; Rachel et al. 2021).
However, the pregnant and postpartum body often visibly departs from contemporary Western beauty ideals, which continue to emphasize thinness, firmness, and control. Although, some women embrace pregnancy-related bodily changes and experience temporary relief from cultural preferences to be thin (Hodgkison et al., 2014). Cultural idealization of thinness therefore complicates the perinatal experience by creating tension between normative weight gain and appearance-based expectations. Consistent with earlier findings, more recent research also shows that body image concerns in early pregnancy predict unhealthy gestational weight patterns, including both inadequate and excessive gain. Women who experience greater body dissatisfaction are more likely to deviate from recommended weight gain guidelines, highlighting the powerful role sociocultural appearance pressures continue to play throughout pregnancy (Hill et al., 2013).
Moreover, longitudinal research shows that body image dissatisfaction evolves over the course of pregnancy in complex ways. Women’s dissatisfaction with certain aspects of their bodies (e.g., strength, body parts, sexual attractiveness) increases from mid to late pregnancy.
Cultural and internalized pressures to remain slim persist during pregnancy, and low body acceptance has been linked to prenatal depressive symptoms (Pérez-Fuentes et al., 2020).
In sum, the literature is clear that weight gain during pregnancy can affect a woman’s physical and mental health and well-being. This can be a difficult time in many women’s lives as they have often been told, typically by the media, that their body should look a certain way.
Theoretical Framework
The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do pregnant women internalize the interpersonal messages they receive about weight gain? (2) Which source(s) of information regarding weight gain during pregnancy (i.e., media, OB/GYNs, or interpersonal contacts) are dismissed, and which are highly influential? And finally, (3) What are the consequences for pregnant women and mothers of these messages? The research questions are framed using a Foucauldian theoretical framework of punishment. In 1975, Michel Foucault wrote about the social evolution of punishment between 18th and 19th century France. In the one type of punishment he discusses, Foucault referenced Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon (1995). The Panopticon was a proposed circular prison design whereby prisoners occupied the circumference of the structure, and the guard(s) would occupy the center of the circular structure so that they could watch the prisoners at all times (Bentham 1995). Foucault’s work on disciplinary punishment focused more on the social and psychological reality for prisoners that they are being constantly surveilled, and this is the approach we take in the present study. Because of the prisoners’ knowledge of this constant surveillance, they began to act as though they were being watched around the clock, even though the actual occurrence of surveillance was unverifiable. Constant surveillance was supposed to induce a heightened self-awareness and paranoia among prisoners, which would in effect control their behavior because of the perceived imminent threat of being watched. In this way, the panopticon was an ideal form of surveillance because individuals learned to internalize an outsider’s gaze and to self-surveil themselves as well as others. This is very similar to the notion of how women internalize the male gaze to view their own bodies as the other.
In addition, this perceived subjection to constant visibility is very similar to the ideals modern mothers face when it comes to parenting (Henderson, Harmon and Houser 2010). In this research, the authors find that modern mothers are constantly subject to the pressure of being watched by others in formal and informal settings. In a formal setting, professionals in social institutions, such as obstetrics and gynecological health care settings, advise women on how much weight to gain during pregnancy, and if women exceed the recommended amount, often the OB/GYN warns of gestational diabetes or other complications that may interfere with pregnancy. The key here is that the sources of information are formal sources. That is, they have legitimacy as objective sources of information on how much weight women should gain during pregnancy, and the information is disseminated uniformly to all women. For the purposes of this paper, we suggest that pregnancy subjects women to Foucault’s conceptualization of surveillance. As in Foucault’s discussion of prisoners, where they were to internalize the gaze of the supervisor (203), so too do pregnant women. Both prisoners and women internalize the power relationship; the OB/GYN and media depictions of pregnant celebrity women serve as the objective source of information which guides how women should look and feel during and after pregnancy.
No studies exist that examine weight gain during pregnancy and pregnant women’s self-image and surveillance. Using a Foucauldian theoretical framework and previous research, we hypothesize that messages about weight gain during pregnancy are most powerfully communicated to women on a post-structuralist, or interpersonal level. That is, the messages may be delivered from an objective source (i.e., OB/GYN), but only have an influence on women’s body esteem if they are internalized and perpetuated without the necessity of social structural punishment. Based on the messages they receive, we also expect to find women self-surveilling, surveilling one another, and changing behaviors in order to conform to the physical standards set out for them.
Methods
Data Source and Sample Selection
After receiving Institutional Review Board approval for our study, we drew our sample from an online website designed for expecting mothers and mothers of young children. Starting in the fall of 2021, a sample of adult women who had recently given birth (within the past six months) was randomly drawn from “birth clubs” on www.babycenter.com. A birth club is an internet group that pregnant women from around the country can join based on the month their baby is to be born. These birth clubs provide an opportunity for women to network with other pregnant women, ask questions, get non-medical advice, etc. To join a birth club, women must become members and sign in with usernames and passwords. Information on the message boards is publicly available. These forums were selected because they provide naturally occurring accounts of how individuals make sense of pregnancy weight gain outside of traditional research settings.
We analyzed message board postings using the same birth clubs from above (June 2021- December 2024). A purposive sampling strategy was used to identify posts relevant to pregnancy weight gain. Posts were selected if they included discussions of weight gain during pregnancy, concerns about gaining too much or too little weight, comparisons with recommended weight gain guidelines, emotional responses to weight changes, or strategies for managing weight during pregnancy. However, because that search yielded so many posts, we had to randomly select posts from the initial batch. We randomly selected 250 posts to analyze.
Data Analysis
A qualitative content analysis approach was used to identify patterns and themes within the discussion threads. Posts were reviewed iteratively and coded for recurring concepts related to experiences of pregnancy weight gain. Initial coding focused on identifying topics emerging directly from the data, including perceptions of appropriate weight gain, anxiety or concern about weight changes, comparisons with other pregnant individuals, medical provider recommendations, body image concerns and attempts to regulate weight during pregnancy. Following initial coding, related codes were grouped into broader thematic categories. Themes were refined through constant comparison across posts by multiple researchers (both the first author here and several student researchers) to examine similarities, differences, and variations in participants’ experiences. Attention was given not only to the content of discussions but also to the individuals constructed meanings around pregnancy, body changes, health, and social expectations.
Again, the messages on these boards are publicly available, but one must be a member of the board to respond to any postings. The usernames and any identifying information about the women has been omitted to protect their confidentiality.
Results
Qualitative results show support for this use of Foucault’s framework in that most women reported increased levels of surveillance from interpersonal contacts, as well as fairly serious self-monitoring of weight gain during pregnancy (e.g. limiting how much they ate or the types of foods they ate). Using a Foucauldian theoretical framework, we believe that it is not only the social institution (i.e., Obstetrics/Gynecology) that significantly influences a woman’s body esteem during and after pregnancy, but that Foucault’s post-structuralist surveillance (i.e., women’s internalized interpretations of messages they receive from OB/GYNs) – also sends powerful perpetuating messages about weight gain, and subsequent self-surveillance.
While the social institution does provide guidelines that influence how a woman feels about her body during and after pregnancy, the actual behavior of punishing oneself (i.e. diet restrictions) is enacted by and reinforced by the pregnant or postpartum woman. That is, OB/GYNs can provide the general guidelines and weight gain measurements, but it is how women use this information to control their behavior that tells us how women are digesting the rhetoric about appropriate weight gain and loss. For example, this first post is from a woman about halfway through her pregnancy, and instead of asking her OB/GYN about appropriate weight gain, she heads directly to the message boards to ask other pregnant women:
- I am 23 weeks this Saturday and have gained 14 pounds, is that a lot? My doctor seemed bothered about my 5 pound weight gain in 4 weeks, this visit it will be the same about 4-5 pounds. I was 5’1”, 105 prior to pregnancy and about 118/119 now (had a 1.5 pound gain this week). Would be interested to see how others are doing with gain…
It is clear that instead of going strictly by the OB/GYN’s advice for weight gain, this woman instead seeks out the approval (or disapproval) of her peers – a great/ example of Foucault’s post-structuralist surveillance.
Another example (below) shows how women may acknowledge the doctor’s weight gain guidelines, yet focuses on other women’s complaints (as well as people she knows “blaming” her for weight gain) when she has gained twice as much:
- According to the scale at the Dr.’s … I have gained 45 lbs since becoming pregnant. The Dr. lectured me last month, but seemed a little more pleased that my gain had slowed down since last time. Sorry ladies, it just gets discouraging sometimes reading the threads about 20 lb weight gains. It doesn’t bother me so much that I’ve gained all the weight, it bothers me more that the Dr. and people I know are talking to me like I’m gaining all this weight on purpose.
The woman from the above excerpt is internalizing the standard recommendation for weight gain to the point that she feels that others are punishing her for gaining it “on purpose.” For this participant, the punishment that they perceive is the judgement from not only her doctor, but from other people that she knows. She doesn’t explain who these people even are, but we can tell that she feels judged and punished. This quote exemplifies the point of the Panoptican like surveillance. The next excerpt is similar in tone; however, she takes it to the next level by discussing how she is specifically trying to avoid knowing how she’s doing in relation to the formal guidelines to avoid the “agony” of surveilling herself:
- Today is hard cause now I feel guilty when I get hungry and want to eat. So I’m just recording my calories and trying to make good choices. And I’ve decided to stand backward on the scale from now on and not look and if my dr. says there’s a problem, she’ll tell me. I hate that cause I’m curious and want to know, but I cried so much yesterday it’s not worth the agony.
Another woman expressed similar sentiment, but extended her surveillance to discrediting her doctor, making sure we know that her doctor isn’t thin either;
- The worst part is that my OB is quite the heffer (sic) herself, and I know that she is just concerned about my baby and my health, but I have no explanation as to why I’m gaining so much, other than suddenly being a stay at home fiancée.
Additionally, the following excerpt is a quintessential example of Foucault’s conceptualization of self-surveillance. First, the pregnant woman is not sharing photographs with anyone else, and admits they were taken as a “tracking tool” that only she uses to surveil her progress. She also invokes psychologically punishing thoughts when she looks at them:
- I found pictures on my computer of personal ‘body shot’ images I took weekly to track my fitness progress. I never shared them with anyone, just my own tracking tool. I am utterly depressed. I feel like shit. I look like shit. Jackets don’t fit. Shoes don’t fit. It’s not just the belly.
Similarly, the following woman admits that not only has she internalized the formal weight gain guidelines in an effort to surveil herself, but that her husband is doing the same thing:
- 5ft. 4 in. 145 lbs. before pregnancy, so a bit over the weight I would have liked to start at. We got pregnant really fast after going off the patch, a month and a half; so I didn’t get much of a chance to concentrate on losing beforehand. However, I’ve only gotten up to 150 1/2 lbs. at my last appointment now at 23 weeks. I’d been eating 3 meals a day and occasionally snacking. I’m not in trouble with my Dr. just yet. Of course my husband has become the food police. It’s gotten pretty emotional around here.
The above quote exemplifies Foucauldian self-surveillance because she feels the need to justify her weight gain by outlining what her previous weight was, what it is currently, and how often she is eating. Clearly she is self-monitoring and being very watchful, expecting to be “in trouble” with her doctor. She also fears the gaze of her husband – a clear example of having internalized expectations for herself to the point that she feels she is being “watched”.
In sum, we found support for the idea that pregnant people were not only self-surveilling their weight, but felt a deep sense that they were being surveilled by others as well. In fact, the surveillance by others was sometimes more prominent than self-surveillance. In addition, we found that many pregnant people felt out of control with their bodies and were being surveilled for something that they felt was not in their control.
Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to examine the following research questions: (1) How do pregnant women internalize the interpersonal messages they receive about weight gain? (2) Which source(s) of information regarding weight gain during pregnancy (i.e., media, OB/GYNs, or interpersonal contacts) are dismissed, and which are highly influential? And finally, (3) What are the consequences for pregnant women and mothers of these messages? We expected that based on a Foucauldian theoretical framework, qualitative data would show that messages about weight gain during pregnancy can originate from an objective source (i.e., OB/GYN), but that women will internalize the message and in turn, surveil themselves as a form of control. In addition, we were curious about whether or not women dismissed weight gain guidelines and if they did, which source was condemned and which sources were seen as valuable and influential. As expected, women internalized the weight gain guidelines, but occasionally condemned objective sources (OB/GYNs) as well as those who they felt were subjecting them to surveillance. In addition, it was clear from this study that regardless of the source, women are undoubtedly self-surveilling when it comes to pregnancy and weight gain.
Clearly the consequences of self-surveilling are troubling for pregnant women; women report feeling judged by other moms on the message boards, saying they aren’t in “trouble” just yet with the doctor, and labeling their husbands the “food police.” And even though the sources of the surveillance are occasionally named (i.e., physician and/or spouse), the women are internalizing the messages to the point where they are self-surveilling and the social institution may no longer be needed. This is the entire point of the Panopticon. In fact, the argument could be made that the objective weight gain guidelines aren’t in the forefront of women’s minds in many of these posts; instead, it seems like the fact that women cannot control weight gain is the real concern. This is quintessential Foucauldian behavior; one woman mentioned self-monitoring through tracking weight gain with photographs and subsequently judging her appearance as “look[ing] like shit.” That is, this woman internalized that there’s a right and wrong amount of weight to gain. She feels that she gained too much and she feels emotionally and physically bad that her clothes don’t fit. Another woman decided to stand backwards on the scale because she did not want to see the weight result at the doctor’s office. However, the weight gain recommendations are to serve a purpose as a general guideline. When women begin to internalize such guidelines, they feel guilt and shame for gaining weight to the point where they may no longer feel they have control over their bodies and can no longer regulate. The rest of her quote tells us differently: she is denying herself when she is hungry, and crying over the agony of self-monitoring, and she is very curious and hates not knowing her weight. Clearly, she is still consumed with self-surveilling behavior; her actions of recording calories, feeling guilty when hungry, and crying because of the magnitude of it all.
The idea of surveilling weight gain during pregnancy has implications for women as women, women as mothers and for their babies. Rutherford and Wood (2022) argue that self-surveillance contributes to disembodiment. Instead of experiencing pregnancy as her own embodied experience, the pregnant woman is encouraged to view her body primarily as something that must be managed for the fetus. The woman becomes a body that houses the baby rather than a person experiencing pregnancy. This reduces women to a vessel, which leads to a loss of autonomy, heightened anxiety (e.g. asking themselves if they are eating the right things, exercising enough, gain too much weight, etc.), individualization of responsibility, and prioritizing the fetus over the mother. In addition, self-surveillance creates an image of the responsible mother. The message becomes that a good mother can anticipate risks, gain the right knowledge, follow expert recommendations, monitor herself, and make the correct choices for the fetus. Consequently, this leads to motherhood becoming something that women must perform correctly. This can lead to feelings of failure as a mother, even before the child is born because women may feel that if something goes wrong, it’s because she wasn’t monitoring herself appropriately. The implication is that the pregnancy woman becomes morally accountable for the outcome of the pregnancy (Rutherford and Wood, 2022).
This is where collecting data from birthboards becomes particularly interesting. A women doesn’t necessarily need a doctor or institution to tell her that she has gained “too much” weight. Other pregnant women can reproduce the same norms through comparison, reassurance, criticism, advice, and sharing their own measurements or weight gain. So, surveillance becomes peer-to-peer as well as medical. The implications here are that women’s monitoring of weight isn’t simply about physical health. It can become a way of demonstrating responsible femininity and responsible motherhood.
It is important to note here that while it makes logical sense that OB/GYNs set general weight gain guidelines for pregnant women, it is disconcerting when women begin internalizing such guidelines to the point that it affects their feelings about their bodies, how they feel when they get hungry, and their relationships with others (particularly loved ones). In addition, it also must be noted that women in this study may be predisposed to self-surveilling. Indeed, self-surveillance is a gendered phenomenon and female bodies are both more publicly and privately scrutinized and objectified (e.g. Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Additionally, they are logging on to a message center and may be specifically searching for messages and posts about weight gain during pregnancy. However, at the same time, analyzing data from this standpoint offers a rich look into the consequences of being pregnant in a society obsessed with being thin. Clearly there is a need for such message boards; technology has made surveilling others and surveilling oneself possible and by analyzing such messages, researchers are afforded a close look into just how women digest and internalize cultural standards for physical appearance and weight gain during pregnancy.
Limitations
There are a few limitations to our study that bear mentioning. First, our data was collected via online message boards, and while there are advantages such as reduced cost and time consumption on the part of the researcher, there are disadvantages as well (Singleton and Straits 2010). Not everyone in the United States has access to a home computer, and this creates what is known as a “digital divide” that can bias studies (Singleton and Straits 2010). Nonusers of the internet are more likely to be Black or Hispanic, poorly educated, and have lower incomes [National Telecommunications and Information Admistration (NTIA) 2007].
In addition, it is difficult to tell whether or not the women were overweight, normal weight or obese before pregnancy unless they specifically mention it in their post. This could be related to how they surveil themselves and one another. Additionally, there are several other variables that may influence a woman’s surveilling behavior that were not included in our data. For example, the argument could be made that women are “used to” being watched by society when it comes to physical appearance and weight gain. However, there could also be interesting differences between women who are “naturally” thin or have never actively internalized societal standards for acceptable weight. This group of women need to be considered differently using Foucault’s theory – we may categorize them as “low surveilling” before pregnancy, and this group may experience the most significant shift in surveilling behavior once becoming pregnant because weight gain and body changes become uncontrollable to a certain extent once a woman becomes pregnant. It would be interesting to analyze low-surveillers and also women who we could put in the high-surveilling group (before pregnancy).
And finally, this study would also benefit from more detailed information about each woman demographically, including the number of previous pregnancies or births, and time of year the baby was born. Additionally, whether the mother breastfeeds or formula feeds her baby may be important as well for several reasons. First, women need extra calories to breastfeed a child, which can easily influence how the mother sees herself, and how others perceive her eating. On the other hand, some argue that women loose baby weight faster if they breastfeed. Further studies may wish to examine some of these relationships.
Despite the limitations of the study, the current study sheds new light onto some of the issues that may play a role in how women internalize guidelines about weight gain during pregnancy, and how those messages manifest into self-surveillance and an attempt to control one’s behavior during pregnancy. The consequences of such behavior are troubling; women should not have to develop such negative body image issues. However, still more research is needed to help discover what other issues may play a role in women’s surveilling behavior during pregnancy.
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