Heatwave, vacations on the horizon, the beach in sight: every year, the pressure builds at the thought that you’ll have to endure other people’s looks on light clothing in the street as well as at the beach. On social media, the gap is wide between #bodypositive accounts that celebrate love handles, cellulite, and “non-standard” bodies, and the tidal wave of the summer body, its cohort of fitness influencers, and their before-and-after shots. Between the two, French people, and especially French women, are struggling.
In this showdown between “Body positive” and the “summer body,” who comes out on top? Body acceptance proclaimed in public discourse, or the injunction to have a perfect body ? Has the body positive movement, fighting against the standardized ideals that social media endlessly parades, really had an impact on French people’s relationship with their bodies in the era of perfect bodies flooding social media ? And more broadly, what has changed in French people’s relationship with their weight over the past decades? These are the questions this survey aims to answer.
Conducted by Ifop for Darwin Nutrition with a nationally representative sample of the stoutest respondents (3,004 people), this study, which has the merit of being backed by a series of historical comparisons, makes it possible to measure, over half a century, the real evolution of French people’s body image issues. And the verdict does not point to easing tensions. On the contrary: never in the past fifty years have French people felt “too fat” as much as they do in the social media era. The complex is growing, now affecting men as well, and the body acceptance proclaimed on social media has, in practice, still not disarmed the culture of thinness.
Key figures
I. In the age of social media, weight is a much greater source of concern than it was fifty years ago
1. The judgment that the French people have about their figure is much harsher than it was thirty years ago: 61% of French women now think they are too fat, compared with 41% in 2001 and 36% in 1997. Men also see themselves as much fatter (48%) than in 2001 (34%).
2. Today, French women’s dissatisfaction with their weight is nearly twice as high (63%) as it was about thirty years ago (37% in 1998). Dissatisfaction with one’s weight is, of course, less pronounced among men, but it is shared by one man out of two (47%).
3. The belly is by far the main source of self-consciousness for the French. Losing belly fat is therefore an aspiration that is three times stronger today (76%) than it was fifty years ago (28% in 1979), and this is true for both men and women.
II. The arrival of summer vacation gives French people a burst of motivation to lose weight, especially women
4. Summer puts twice as many French people on “slimness alert” today (40%) as it did fifty years ago (22% in 1979), while affecting women much more (47%) than men (33%).
5. The desire to lose weight before vacation is twice as strong today (38%) as it was at the end of the 1970s (23%), while remaining highly gendered: nearly one in two French women (46%) wants to lose pounds before summer vacation, compared with three men out of ten (30%).
6? And this desire to lose pounds before summer vacation is not exclusive to overweight women: it is also shared by one-third of French women with a “normal” BMI (33%) and even 13% of women who are underweight.
III. Adopting a healthier diet remains the preferred weight-loss solution alongside exercise
7. If most French people who want to lose their extra kilos before summer plan above all to simply eat healthier (85%), nearly half (47%) also plan to go on a strict diet, especially women (50%, versus 43% of men).
8. Nearly three-quarters of French people hoping to lose their extra kilos before summer plan to do sports, go to the gym, or do weight training (71%), especially among the youngest, wealthiest, and most highly educated groups in the population.
9. Taking GLP-1-type medication is being considered by 10% of French people hoping to lose their extra kilos; among women, this option is gaining popularity among younger women (14% of Gen Z) and daily consumers of beauty content (21%) or fitness influencers (19%).
IV. Support for body positivity and addiction to ” beauty/fitness ” content on social media are far from being contradictory behaviors
10. Young people’s exposure to images of idealized bodies on social media is massive : 66% of women under 35 consult beauty content there, 62% follow sports influencer accounts, and 51% view images of “perfect” bodies that they want to resemble.
11. Much more prevalent among women (67%) than among men (55%), this attention to one’s weight goes hand in hand with regularly viewing “beauty” content or images of “perfect” bodies (88% among daily consumers, versus 68% among non-consumers).
12. Support for the « body positive » movement is mixed (52%), except among the youngest (74%). But this support is not incompatible with heavy social media use: body positivity values are shared by 81% of women who watch beauty content every day, compared with 50% of women who never watch it.
François Kraus’s perspective, from IFOP
Nearly ten years after #MeToo and the rise of feminist speech about the body, and in the full swing of the “body-positive” moment, one could have expected a more peaceful relationship between the French and their weight. It is the opposite that this study reveals: never, in half a century, have they felt so “fat.”
This hardening has three new faces. First, it becomes more masculine, through the belly, a sign that the aesthetic injunction is no longer reserved for women; then it becomes detached from actual body size: a third of thin women still want to lose weight before summer, proof that the norm targets an ideal and not health. Finally, it is reshaped in its solutions, with stigmatizing dieting giving way to “eating well” and going to the gym, while Ozempic, still marginal, introduces the prospect of medically assisted thinness.
The final wide gap remains: that of body positivity supported with only lukewarm commitment, yet which does not reduce insecurities, diets, or the consumption of “perfect” bodies. It all happens as if body acceptance had become a rallying cry that people are happy to share… without ever stopping feeling too fat. More tolerant in words, the French are no less, in the secrecy of the mirror, more self-conscious than ever.
Darwin Nutrition’s perspective on the study
“We have found that the French have adopted a certain number of good habits when it comes to losing weight. Eating healthier and exercising are indeed the two most effective and, above all, sustainable pillars for losing weight, or at least for feeling better in one’s body (because let’s remember, exercise alone does not make you lose weight!). Despite their short-term effectiveness, strict diets have never worked for sustainable weight loss, since the vast majority of people regain the weight lost at the end of the diet, and often even more!”
Quentin Molinié, co-founder of Darwin Nutrition
A. In the age of social media, dissatisfaction with one’s weight is at its highest in a quarter century, and a complex that is becoming more masculine
1 – French women who are overweight are almost twice as numerous as they were about thirty years ago
61% of French women now consider themselves too fat, compared with 41% in 2001 and 36% in 1997. This growing dissatisfaction confirms the increasingly harsh view women overall have of their appearance since the beginning of the century, with previous studies already highlighting, for example, an increase in the number of French women feeling insecure about certain parts of their bodies (70% in 2023, compared with 50% in 2011[1]).
This feeling of being overweight does not spare men: one man in two (48%) considers himself too fat, compared with one in three (34%) 25 years ago. But unlike men, women have been making this critical judgment about their weight as soon as they leave adolescence — 44% of women under 25 consider themselves too fat, compared with 16% of men of the same age — and not necessarily without a large build: 36% of women with a “normal” BMI feel they are too fat, as do 18% of “thin” women.
Ifop’s view
Far exceeding the increase in body size observed in France over the same period (38% in 1997 to 49% in 2024[2]), this growing self-deprecation about weight seems to us symptomatic of an inflation of the thinness standard, fueled by digital overexposure to perfect bodies that widens, for many, the gap between the real body and the ideal body.
2 – French women are much more uncomfortable today about their weight than before the era of screens and social media
Today, French women’s dissatisfaction with their weight is almost twice as high (63%) as it was about thirty years ago (37% in 1998). This weight dissatisfaction contributes to the rise in women’s overall dissatisfaction with their bodies, observed in other studies (26% in 2005, compared with 52% in 2023[3]).
In a country like France, where being underweight among women is more valued than in the rest of Europe[4], body-shaming still appears to be stronger among women (63%) than among men (47%). Among women, this frustration with weight peaks in middle age (72% of women aged 35-49 are dissatisfied), but above all, it affects not only overweight women: nearly half (43%) of women with a “normal” body type are dissatisfied with their weight.
Ifop’s view
If this study confirms how much the “weight burden” still weighs more heavily on women than on men, regardless of their actual body type, it also highlights a certain masculinization of this type of complex, a sign that in the age of social media, men are no longer spared the injunction to be thin.
3 – A highly gendered geography of body-image issues: the stomach brings the sexes together, the lower body sets them apart
The stomach and the waist seem to occupy a central and increasingly important place in this weight-related complex. Equally strong among men (72%) and women (78%), the desire to slim the stomach is thus three times stronger in the population (76%) than it was about fifty years ago (28% in 1979). The proportion of French people wanting to lose weight around the waist has, for its part, doubled between 1979 (23%) and 2026 (48%).
The other parts of the body (buttocks, thighs, hips) do not concern them as much in this respect and have not changed nearly as much over the past 50 years. On the other hand, thighs, hips, and buttocks remain overwhelmingly female body-image issues: 33% of women would like to slim their buttocks, for example, compared with 10% of men.
This desire to slim down the stomach spans all ages and body types; 68% of women of average build share it. The lower body, meanwhile, remains the subject of a gaze directed at women, regardless of age or social background.
Ifop’s perspective
Body anxiety is becoming more masculine, centered on the abdomen, that “belly” so highly valued by the culture of core training, the gym, and the male summer body. The female body, meanwhile, remains scrutinized “by area,” symptomatic of the persistence of an objectification of women’s bodies[5], which the post-#MeToo feminist wave brought to light without making it disappear.
B. The “summer body”: an injunction that has intensified over decades and that weighs above all on women
4 – The “swimsuit effect” is much stronger today than it was in the past.
There are now twice as many French people going into “slim-down alert” as summer approaches today (40%) as there were about fifty years ago (22% in 1979). And this tendency to worry about one’s figure with the arrival of summer affects women (47%) much more than men (33%).
It is even stronger when you are young (54% of women ages 18-34) and when you consume beauty content (80% of daily consumers).
5 – One-third of French people are now taking action to lose weight, especially women
Generally speaking, around one-third (32%) of the population usually tries to lose weight, twice as many as in 1979 (15%). Currently, 34% of women and 29% of men are making efforts to slim down.
Effort is more common among younger people (39% of those ages 18 to 34). Notably, support for body positivity changes nothing: adherents of this movement, which fights the standardized image of the body promoted on social media, make just as much effort (34%) as its opponents (34%).
6 – The pressure affects “normal” bodies: one third of thin women still want to lose weight before summer
The desire to lose weight before vacation is twice as strong today (38%) as it was at the end of the 1970s (23%) while remaining highly gendered : nearly one in two French women (46%) wants to lose pounds before summer vacation, compared with three in ten men (30%).
While it rises with BMI, the desire to lose weight before summer remains widespread where medically it has no reason to be: one third of women of normal weight (33%), compared with half as many men of the same build, want to slim down before summer. Among women, this desire to shed pounds by vacation time reinforces analyses of the class relationship to the body[6], with a very clear upper-socioeconomic-status profile (executives, business leaders, college-educated women, etc.).
What Ifop Says
The feminist critique of the injunction to have a “beach body” has not been enough to defuse the “summer body” mechanism: it still works as a seasonal ritual that every spring, above all women, requires accountability for their figure before the ordeal of the beach, regardless of their actual body size.
C. Weight-loss solutions: “eating healthy” overtakes strict dieting while Ozempic remains a niche
7 – Dieting is twice as common an experience as it was fifty years ago, but it is giving way to “healthy eating”
Twice as common today (45%) as it was about fifty years ago (21% in 1979), dieting with the aim of losing weight is a massively female experience : women being twice as likely (56%) as men (32%) to have already tried it at least once in their lifetime.
But for this summer, it is now “eating healthier without a strict diet” (85%) that is emerging as the top intention among people looking to shed pounds, well ahead of dieting itself (47%).
Dieting is most common among women in managerial positions (67%) and rises with BMI. But it has plateaued since 2015 (44%, then 45%): it is “healthy eating” that has taken over.
Ifop’s perspective
It seems that we are witnessing less a decline in diet culture than its rebranding in the guise of “healthy eating.” Stigmatizing dieting is giving way to a diffuse injunction to eat healthily, which is more broadly accepted but remains strongly marked by social class.
8 – Sport: a widespread, democratized, and gender-balanced recourse…
71% of these candidates for “summer slimness” plan to do sports, gym, or weight training, just as many men as women (71%). This option is more popular among young people, college graduates, and higher-income groups.
The gym and weight training are establishing themselves as the “active” path to transformation, as opposed to deprivation.
The Ifop perspective
The shift from “losing” to “sculpting oneself” says something about the times: people no longer slim down, they “transform themselves.” For men in particular, weightlifting offers the socially valued form of work on the body, the kind that turns male body anxiety into a performance project.
9 – Ozempic, still a niche, but a niche that is building loyalty
Willingness to use GLP-1-type drugs (Ozempic) remains marginal: only 10% of those aiming for a slimmer summer body are considering it, far behind diet (85%) or exercise (71%). Marketed in France since late 2024 and reimbursed for obesity since June 2026[7], these treatments therefore have success that should be put into perspective.
This highly medicalized option is somewhat popular among young people (14% of Gen Z), in the Paris metropolitan area (19%) and among fans of beauty content (21%). Above all, it is concentrated among those who have already used it: nearly all current users plan to continue. The drug retains users more than it attracts new ones.
The Ifop perspective
The “Ozempic revolution” is not (yet) a mass aesthetic phenomenon, but a concentrated, self-reinforcing use. Caution is warranted, moreover, with this 10%, which is measured as an intention among a population already motivated and exposed to social desirability bias.
D. Has body positivity died? Proclaimed acceptance does not disarm either insecurities or slimness culture
10 – Massive exposure to normative content, especially among young women
Young women under the age of 35 are immersed in images of perfect bodies: 66% consult beauty content, 62% follow sports/fitness influencers, and 51% view images of «perfect» bodies they would like to resemble. Among women aged 18-24, consumption of beauty content rises to 73%.
This exposure goes hand in hand with self-control: 88% of daily consumers of this content say they watch their weight, compared with 68% of others. A sign of the times, 16% have already consulted influencers… generated by artificial intelligence. Already widely documented (e.g., Dove’s self-esteem project), the correlation between social media use and body dissatisfaction is clearly confirmed.
Far from being opposed, support for body positivity and consumption of normative content go hand in hand: 81% of daily female consumers of beauty content embrace body positivity values, compared with 50% of non-consumers.
It should be noted that body positivity first appeals to young women (74% of those aged 18-34), college-educated women, and women on the left.
Ifop’s perspective
Far from contradicting each other, preaching body diversity and scrutinizing one’s reflection coexist without friction in the same news feed. Indeed, it is the same young, feminine, connected women who celebrate the acceptance of all bodies and who are also the most exposed to thinness ideals.
11 – A body-positivity movement with little effect on diets or insecurities
The views of the French remain mixed regarding body positivity (52% support it), but young adults aged 18 to 34 overwhelmingly support it (74% of 18- to 34-year-olds). However, this support has no effect on behavior: the number of women who want to lose weight before this summer is just as high among supporters of the movement (45%) as among those who oppose it (46%).
Supporting body positivity reduces neither the feeling of being “too fat,” nor concern about weight, nor the desire to slim down before summer.
Ifop’s perspective
More of a progressive identity marker than a lever for emancipation, body positivity functions as a discursive veneer laid over unchanged behaviors, and is largely embraced by those least affected by stigma. Beneath the rhetoric of acceptance, shame about the fat body continues to operate quietly.
TO CITE THIS STUDY, YOU MUST USE AT MINIMUM THE FOLLOWING WORDING:
“Ifop study for Darwin Nutrition conducted online from May 17 to 21, 2026, among a sample of 3,004 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over.”
About Darwin Nutrition
Darwin Nutrition is an independent media outlet dedicated to nutrition, founded in 2019. Its editorial team is made up of health and food professionals, scientists, and specialized writers.
Darwin Nutrition also produces the Food Revolutions! podcast, dedicated to the political and sociological issues surrounding food.
Press contacts
François Kraus (Ifop) – Tel.: 06 61 00 37 76 – francois.kraus@ifop.com
Léo Major (Ifop) – Tel.: 01 72 34 94 42 – leo.major@ifop.com
Quentin Molinié (Darwin Nutrition) – quentin@darwin-nutrition.fr
Francis Aubouin (IFOP-ISSEO) – Tel.: 06 88 09 76 70 – francis.aubouin@ifop.com
