Advertising Has Targeted Women for Decades

The first one features thin models, the second one shows average-size models, and the third one shows no models. The authors try to prove that the exposure of thin ideal bodies in the media does negatively impacts young women’s body images. It was concluded that women that were exposed to thin ideal bodies resulted in a higher body-focused anxiety than those who are exposed to average-size models and no models. This article will be able to support my thesis because it shows the negative effects of exposure of thin ideal bodies to the female public and my thesis is about the negative impacts of ideal bodies exposure on self-esteem and self-image. This article will be used in the psychology section of the

Advertising is an over 200$ billion industry and according to Jean Kilbourne, people are exposed to over 3000 advertisements a day. Advertisements are everywhere so there is no escaping them; they are on TV, magazines, billboards, etc. These ads tell women and girls that what’s most important is how they look, and they surround us with the image of "ideal female beauty". However, this flawlessness cannot be achieved. It’s a look that’s been created through Photoshop, airbrushing, cosmetics, and computer retouching. There have been many studies done that have found a clear link between exposure to the thin ideal in the mass media to body dissatisfaction, thin ideal internalization, and eating disorders among women. Body dissatisfaction is negative thoughts that a person has about his or her own body. Thin ideal internalization is when a person believes that thinness is equivalent to attractiveness and will lead to positive life outcomes. Less than 5% of women actually have the body type that is shown of

Many people would argue that they personally feel exempt from the influences of advertising. But if this is the case, then why is the advertising industry grossing over $250 billion a year? The American living in the United States is typically exposed to over 3,00 advertisements in a single day, which means that he or she will spend two years of their lives watching television commercials. Advertisements are everywhere and we cannot avoid them. We see advertisements in schools, buildings, billboards, airplanes, bust stops, and so on. Not only are advertisements selling advertisements, but they’re selling values and beliefs, sexuality, images, and the normalcy of believing who we should be because an advertisement said so. Advertisements can create environments, but sometimes these environments can become toxic when consumers buy into its toxicity. One of the biggest toxicities of advertisements is the portrayal of women in advertisements. Though standards of beauty vary over time and by cultures, it seems as though the advertising industry is still buying into “the beauty myth.” This is notion that “the quality of beauty objectively and universally exists.” Though there have been strides to break this notion and attack how advertising has objectified women, it seems as though advertisements are objectifying women more and more. In most advertisements, we are not seeing women being depicted as who they really are, but being portrayed and objectified to be someone that they

Recently, a hot topic has been the effects of media on body image. There has been speculation that media can lower an individual's satisfaction with their body. Scott Westerfeld portrays this same idea in his book Uglies. All Tally Youngblood wants to do is be a Pretty like her best friend Peris (Westerfeld, 2005). In Tally's world this is normal; at sixteen everyone has a surgery to them into beautiful human beings (Westerfeld, 2005).

Moreover, as Richins (1991) reports, women always make social comparisons between the advertising models and themselves. As a result, advertising images create negative affect and increases women’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Since those images are edited through the consistent usage of digital technology, these idealized images do not portray women in a healthy manner. Indeed, these enhanced images would give these young girls the impression that they need to be ‘perfect’, just like these ‘fake’ images. According to Reist in ABC’s Gruen Session (2010), ‘young women get the message that they need to be thin, hot and sexy just to be acceptable’ in this society. Therefore, by generating the wrong perception of real beauty, the responsibility is pushed to the marketers, as they portray women with this stereotypical body type as acceptable. In addition, as the brand, Dove’s tagline in its advertisement - What happened to the ‘real beauty’? (Reist, 2010), marketers need not market their products in manners portraying women as airheads. Consequently, marketers gave most consumers viewing the advertisement, the wrong impression that

In the article, “Skinny Models In Ads Cause Immediate Anger, Depression In Women” it says, “Led by Dr. Leora Pinhas, researchers asked 118 female university students about their mood, body satisfaction and eating patterns. One week later, the women were asked the same questions immediately after viewing a series of ads, with half of the women being exposed to ads from popular women's magazines while the others looked at images which contained no pictures of people. ‘The experimental group responded immediately with depression and hostility after viewing the "ideal women" shown in these ads,’ says Pinhas, a lecturer in U of T's department of psychiatry. ‘And this was only after viewing 20 pictures..”’ CNN also states, “One study found that one in four people is depressed about their body, another found that almost a third of women say they would sacrifice a year of life to achieve the ideal body weight and shape, and almost half of girls in a recent survey think the pressure to look good is the worst part of being female.” This demonstrates that after an experiment conducted by Dr. Leora Pinhas, researches found out that after women viewed 20 pictures from magazine ads they felt depressed when they saw the “ideal woman” in the ad. One in four people are depressed because of the way they look. This can go to the extremes. Women would do anything they can to look a certain

The media is one of the leading causes of self esteem and body image issues in not only women but men as well. This is due to the fact that thousands of advertisements contain messages about physical attractiveness and beauty. Examples include: commercials for clothes, cosmetics, weight loss, hair removal, laser surgery and physical fitness. The effects of advertising on body image have been studied by researchers, psychologists, marketing professionals and more. Researchers, Mary Martin and James Gentry found that teen directed advertising negatively impacts self-esteem. The advertising industry is setting unrealistic expectations for teens about their physical appearances by using models with "perfect bodies." The modeling industry today has put many pressures on models, causing them disorders of both mental and physical illness. These disorders then creating the look of the “perfect body” have now lead to unrealistic expectations of body image for society.

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

In her fourth installment of “Killing Us Softly”, Jean Kilbourne explores the image of women that American advertising industries have created in our society. Kilbourne breaks down the trends that advertisements constantly reinforce for women throughout the decades, and criticizes the impossible standards that women are shamed into trying to achieve. She allows us to take a deeper look at the exploitative, sexist, and misogynistic tendencies embedded in commercial culture, which is presented everywhere we look. Proceeding to emphasize that these ads have damaging effects in the real world, leading to violence against women, eating disorders, and low self esteem. Furthermore, Kilbourne acknowledges that although things have changed through the

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

         We are constantly reminded of our imperfections through modern propaganda and this may be a factor in the negative thoughts one may have but how much can one blame on magazines, billboards and television for problems created with-in our own minds? Some psychologists believe that repeated exposure to images of thin women in magazines, TV and the movies is directly linked to the rise in the number of eating disorders in the US (Shape Magazine, 1995).

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

Advertising has a huge effect on how women perceive their own bodies, good or bad, but mostly bad. The media has been using models that are portrayed with the thin-ideal, the fetishization of thin bodied women, for so long and it has really taken a toll on women viewers. This paper describes the many problems and ramifications that advertisements centered on thin women has on people that view them.

Advertisments surround us on a daily basis. Constantly bombarding our conscious and subconscious minds with consumer items and suggestive material. But how much of that impacts the mind of young adults? More specifically how does the constant incursion of beauty advertisements impact young women? Media, any form of mass communication- is one of the biggest factors in this widespread problem. Through the use of media, ideas, images, expectations of perfection is broadcasted throughout the country and on most occasions throughout the world. The portrayal of beauty in the media has contributed to a variety of psychological problems such as: misinterpretation of beauty, early exploration of sexuality and lowered sense of self worth

In terms of women and sex appeal, the world of advertising has changed a considerable amount. Many of the advertisements which are seen in newspapers, magazines, and television fail to portray women in a more positive light. The image of females in numerous advertisements are merely viewed as fascinating "objects" while they are also being displayed in a fashion that is supposed to appeal only to men, i.e. exploitation of the body. Though these types of advertisements are very effective at selling their products to consumers, it seems as if the minds ' of women, especially younger women/teenage girls are being corrupted as they are pressured to live up to the ideal image: sexy and thin with a little extra curves.