Mental freedom and body acceptance by others as correlates of embodied well-being in women with polycystic ovary syndrome in Australia

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common reproductive-endocrinological-metabolic condition in women, causing bodies to diverge from cis-heteronormative feminine expectations. Greater body image concerns have been identified among women with PCOS, but further research is needed to identify drivers and mitigating factors. The ability to inhabit the body positively may be one such mitigating factor, and the developmental theory of embodiment is a novel framework allowing exploration of an integrated range of protective (and risk) sociocultural factors that may contribute to embodied well-being. This cross-sectional survey study therefore examined relationships among embodied well-being, severity of PCOS symptoms, body mass index (BMI), mental freedom (exposure to a social environment that facilitates an internalised critical stance towards oppressive social discourses, including femininity discourses on appearance and comportment), and perceived body acceptance by others in a sample of 140 women with PCOS, 18 years and over, living in Australia. Results of hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated that BMI and PCOS severity were negatively related to embodied well-being, but that when mental freedom and perceived body acceptance by others were added to the model, only PCOS severity, mental freedom, and body acceptance by others were significantly related to embodied well-being. Neither mental freedom nor body acceptance by others moderated the relationship between PCOS severity and BMI and embodied well-being. Results support BMI and PCOS severity as drivers of, and mental freedom and body acceptance by others as protective factors for, embodied well-being in women with PCOS, and have implications for interventions to support embodied well-being.