Associations between menopause and body image: A systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: The menopausal transition involves multiple biological and psychosocial challenges that may render middle-aged women vulnerable to body image concerns. Objective: The aim of this study was to summarize evidence on the associations between menopause and body image perception in healthy middle-aged women. Design: This study is a systematic review of observational studies. Data sources and methods: Menopause-related exposure measures included menopausal stages, menopausal symptoms, and reproductive hormone levels during the menopausal transition. Studies investigating body image as an outcome, including through a positive (e.g. body self-esteem) or negative (e.g. body dissatisfaction) lens, were considered eligible. Articles published before March 2023 were identified through MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase and underwent double screening, extraction, and quality assessment by two independent investigators. Characteristics and results were summarized using narrative synthesis. Results: A total of 820 non-duplicate records were identified, with 18 observational studies deemed eligible for inclusion after full-text screening. All studies investigating menopausal symptoms and body image ( n = 6) found some significant association between them, with a higher frequency, intensity, or number of symptoms being associated with greater body image concern. Differences in body image perception between menopausal stages were inconsistent across studies ( n = 12), while evidence of potential associations between reproductive hormones and body image was minimal ( n = 2). Findings should be interpreted with caution as 17 of the included studies used a cross-sectional design, and not all studies adjusted their analyses for relevant confounders. Conclusion: Overall, menopausal symptoms showed relatively consistent associations with a more negative body image perception. Additional research is required to understand the potential role of menopausal stages and reproductive hormone levels in the body image perception of middle-aged women and to confirm the direction of reported associations. Registration: PROSPERO—CRD42021241637
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.055 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".