Media Impact and Body Image

Some girls and young women compare themselves to models in ads, in terms of their physical attractiveness. Many commentators regard the emphasis in the media and in the fashion industry on thinness and on an ideal female body shape and size as being psychologically detrimental to the well-being of many young women, and on their self-image which also gives rise to excessive dieting and/or exercise. Not only are stars appearing thin and fit, but also youthful and flawless. Over the past few decades, plastic surgeries have increased and common procedures such as breast augmentation and rhinoplasty had increased by more than 700% from 1992 to 2004. Media plays its role in promoting these cosmetic medical treatments through advertisements in magazines and on billboards, typically using beautiful women in a state of happiness. The media’s impact is even more negatively impacting society because plastic surgery’s demographic is changing as well. More specifically, patients are getting younger. In 2002, almost 225,000 adolescents underwent plastic surgery procedures, both for either cosmetic procedures and for functionality purposes (Giovannelli, Cash, Henson, & Engel, 2012).

A study by Garner and Garfinkel demonstrated that those in professions where there is a particular social pressure to be thin (such as models and dancers) were much more likely to develop anorexia during their career, and further research suggests that those with anorexia have much higher contact with cultural sources that promote weight-loss. The Israeli Parliament recently passed a law prohibiting clinically underweight female or male models from appearing in advertisements and in fashion shows. Under the new legislation, models of either gender must have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 18.5 kg/m2 to be able to work in the industry, and they also need proof that a physician certifies that they are not underweight. In a further step, any artificial enhancements of images to make a person look thinner must be clearly stated right on the image.

However, other researchers have contested the claims of the media effects paradigm. An article by Christopher Ferguson, Benjamin Winegard, and Bo Winegard, for example, argues that peer effects are much more likely to cause body dissatisfaction than media effects, and that media effects have been overemphasized. It also argues that one must be careful about making the leap from arguing that certain environmental conditions might cause body dissatisfaction to the claim that those conditions can cause diagnosable eating disorders.

Disorders caused by social media

French child psychoanalyst Francoise Dolto developed a theory of the unconscious body image. Negative perceptions by a person regarding their body, such as a perception that they are fat, can in some cases lead to mental disorders, though there can be a variety of different reasons why these disorders can occur. Social Media has affected our society in multiple ways when referring to body image. Society promotes us human beings to look a certain way such as skinny,muscular, and beautiful. However, the pressure put on individuals can lead to disorders such as anxiety, depression and eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa.

A community cohort study was conducted in Navarra, Spain. A region-wide representative sample of 2862 girls who were 12 to 21 years of age completed the Eating Attitudes Test (40-item version) and other questionnaires in 1997.Ninety new cases of eating disorders according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria were identified during the follow-up.The results support the role of mass media influences and parental marital status in the onset of eating disorders. The habit of eating alone should be considered as a warning sign of eating disorders.

Dismantling the media pressures of body image

The negative influence of the media's promotion of often unrealistic and concretely unattainable images of beauty has, at least in more recent times, been noted and criticized. Films and campaigns have been put in place to dismantle the pressure and show the ugly truth behind media. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, the documentary called Miss Representation along the documentary America the Beautiful all address the damage done to citizens of both by sexes by the media's promotion of materially impossible criteria of physical attractiveness.

There has recently been a debate within the media industry focusing on the potentially negative impact size zero models can have on young people's body image. It has been suggested that size zero models be banned from cat walks, with many celebrities being targeted by the media due to their often drastic weight loss and slender frames; for example, Nicole Richie and British Super Model Kate Moss.Physical appearance comparison processes appear to play a critical role in the link between fashion media exposure and body image dissatisfaction. And it appears that upwards physical appearance comparisons against idealised images leads to greater dissatisfaction, but downward comparisons, for example against obese people, are associated with better body image satisfaction.

Feminist women were studied during a study done by Lisa R. Rubin, Carol J. Nemeroff and Nancy Felipe Russo at Arizona State University on body consciousness. The following quote describes how feminism seems to be a safety net for women in regards to the media. "Feminism appears to be a life-raft in the sea of media imagery. Specifically, feminist perspectives celebrate diversity among women, including body size diversity." An example of this is the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. In 2006, Dove launched the Real Beauty Campaignwhich promotes the Dove Self-Esteem Fund with the award winning advertisement, Evolution. The following link sends you to YouTube and shows the advertisement. The advertisement shows the many levels of deception that take place while photo editing that could be beneficial for individuals to watch. The clip encourages viewers to realize the ugly truth of photo editing. Viewers will watch the work put into beauty regiments before the shoot for the model but Evolution also shows how many edits and changes are made to create the perfect images that are plastered throughout media (Giovannelli, Cash, Henson, & Engel, 2012).