research essay
...ly related to beauty (Stice and Shaw 289). In a study where the four most popular women's magazines were compared to the four most popular mens magazines, it was found that out of forty-eight issues of each, there was a total of sixty three diet food ads for women and only one diet food ad for men (Mellin, Scully, and Irwin). Television, magazines, and other popular media seem at once to create and perpetuate our cultures values for beauty, and what is currently found acceptable for body shape and size, style, and attitude. Magazines, television ads, billboards, music videos, and movies all reveal images of tall, thin, tanned, and beautiful young people, as well as linking them smoothly to other images of love, success, happiness, prestige, popularity, and wealth for women. It has been found that Śrepeated exposure to the thin ideal via various media can lead to the internalization of this ideal (Richins 75), and Stice and Shaw find that, women who have internalized these ideals, the fantasy begins to seem an attainable goal. Studies also suggest that the idealized images lowered womens satisfaction with their own attractiveness. And after viewing these images, women immediately began to experience shame, body dissatisfaction, depression, and stress (Richins 83). For many young women, the effort to remark themselves in the unreal media images becomes life threatening. A study in 1991 which tracked the incidents of anorexia nervosa over a fifty year period found that the incidents of the disease among American females who at the age of 10 to 19 reflected directly changes in fashion and its ideal body image. Many of the subjects also stated that they felt the greatest pressure of body weight ideals primarily form the media, with additional but less influence from peers and family. There was another study conducted by the American Association of University Women (1990) found that girls who had a negative body image were three times as likely as boys to believe that others perceived them negatively. The study also established ...