Fashion Magazines Affects Women's Self-Esteem
Depleting Body Image:
The Effects of Female Magazine Models on the Self-esteem and Body Image of College-age Women
Influence of Magazines on College-Age Females’ Body Image
Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media’s idea of the “perfect” body. These unrealistic images are portrayed in women’s magazines all over the country. The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough. The average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Annually, magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Magazines sell body dissatisfaction to their readers through unrealistic images of women, as well as dieting and exercise information. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size, but today’s standard is much smaller. As the beauty ideal continues to get smaller in our society, body image within American women continues to plummet. Magazines portray and compare happiness with being thin; therefore some feel if they are not thin, then they are not happy. As with women of all ages, many college-age women are believed to hold unrealistic ideals of body shape and size, ideals that can be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.
Our study, focused on women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison that are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. We wanted to identify the specific effects that the magazine portrayal of the “perfect” body has on college-age women’s body image and self-esteem. We hypothesized that this portrayal contributes to women having negative body images and self-esteem due to the reinforcement of body shapes and sizes in magazines that are unrealistic for most women to attain. In our study we defined body image as the subjective concept of one’s physical appearance based on self-observation and the reaction of others. We defined self-esteem as the
The Effects of Female Magazine Models on the Self-esteem and Body Image of College-age Women
Influence of Magazines on College-Age Females’ Body Image
Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media’s idea of the “perfect” body. These unrealistic images are portrayed in women’s magazines all over the country. The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough. The average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Annually, magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Magazines sell body dissatisfaction to their readers through unrealistic images of women, as well as dieting and exercise information. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size, but today’s standard is much smaller. As the beauty ideal continues to get smaller in our society, body image within American women continues to plummet. Magazines portray and compare happiness with being thin; therefore some feel if they are not thin, then they are not happy. As with women of all ages, many college-age women are believed to hold unrealistic ideals of body shape and size, ideals that can be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.
Our study, focused on women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison that are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. We wanted to identify the specific effects that the magazine portrayal of the “perfect” body has on college-age women’s body image and self-esteem. We hypothesized that this portrayal contributes to women having negative body images and self-esteem due to the reinforcement of body shapes and sizes in magazines that are unrealistic for most women to attain. In our study we defined body image as the subjective concept of one’s physical appearance based on self-observation and the reaction of others. We defined self-esteem as the