General expressions for the magnetic self-energy and the shape anisotropy of heterogeneous bodies have been derived. Heterogeneous bodies of arbitrary shape are assumed to be composed of coherently packed fine particles of arbitrary shape. Our mean-field approach is compared with the previous approaches to the problem of dipolar interactions specific to the magnetic systems with multilayer, granular, and columnar microstructure or thin films with surface roughness. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.