Nearly half of women cancel dates due to body insecurities

Dating apps are hard.

Dating is hard as it is, but online dating? It sometimes can seem like a nightmare. The pressure to look as good as your pictures and meet somebody else's standards can take its toll, so it's no wonder that so many of us end up cancelling dates before they even happen. 44% of us to be exact, new research from Bumble shows that this many of us admit to cancelling dates and pinning it down to body insecurities. Feeling the impact of poor body image, 86% say they felt held back by a lack of body confidence when heading out on dates. And in this day and age, we are turning to dating apps more and more, but this is also having an effect as 54% of people said they are less likely to feel good after spending an extended amount of time online, and 63% of people more concerned with how they look than they did pre-covid. Bumble’s Head of UK & Ireland Naomi Walkland said: "The impact of covid is far-reaching and it’s important to acknowledge the effect it has had on our mental health and confidence as restrictions lift. Body anxiety can have a huge impact on how people date, which is why our body-shaming policy is so important this summer. "We hope that our zero-tolerance policy for racist, hate-driven speech, abusive behaviour and harassment, does it’s part to make people on Bumble feel empowered to be their authentic selves comfortably and confidently." Due to the negativity that can come with any dating app, Bumble has taken steps to ban all body-shaming, as well as unsolicited and derogatory comments made about someone’s appearance, body shape, size or health. This includes anything that falls under fat-phobia, ableism, racism, colourism, homophobia or transphobia, encouraging users to report and block others that behave in this way.