Journalism plays a key role in the depiction of extremely thin celebrities and fashion models in magazines targeted for teenage girls and young women. Key magazines depict the image of the ideal body which celebrities possess. These images can be seen in magazines such as Heat, Closer, Reveal, Star, Love It and New only to mention a few. The portrayal of the ideal body shape in celebrities applies a cultural pressure to be thin and achieve the ideal body shape on teenagers and young women who read these magazines and other influential media sources. Hollywood has also become obsessed with the way women look and put pressure on celebrities to slim down to a size zero. The image of anorexic celebrities with bones jutting out, like Mary Kate Olsen, may be a contributory factor in young girls becoming eating disordered (Living, 2007).

Journalism also plays a role in the way it puts pressure on women to return to a low body weight soon after giving birth. There are always images of celebrities looking sexy and curvy soon after they have had a baby.

These types of images put pressure on normal women to return to their normal weight soon after giving birth, which is not natural. ‘There is pressure to maintain a low body weight and Ideal shape, even shortly after giving birth.’(Jeffries, 2007)

Hollywood also seems to be obsessed in celebrities having cosmetic surgery to maintain the perfect body. There is no more of celebrities growing old with dignity. Instead they have procedures such as Botox and facelifts. There is pressure to undergo surgery or other interventionist techniques to preserve youthful features or improve one’s body shape or looks (Jeffries, 2007).

Body Dissatisfaction

People, specifically women, view their body image or appearance as falling short of society’s depiction of the ideal body. One reason for body dissatisfaction is that the ideal of feminine beauty in America is so extremely thin that it is unachievable by most women living in that society (Gilbert et al, 2002), bearing in mind that there is a high statistic of obesity in America in normal men and women.

There may be links between the portrayal in the media of very skinny fashion models and other girl stars, the dissatisfaction shown by young women with their weight and the alleged rise in eating disorders among young women (Frost, 2001).

Perfect Body

Women are shown by the media what their bodies can and ought to look like and presented beauty products to attain this (Frost, 2001).

Girls and women are instructed, with the philosophy that it is essential that women have perfect bodies and faces presented for male use. This produces the insecurity of never achieving the accepted standard and experiencing constant dissatisfaction with their own bodies (Frost, 2001).

The Body Image women propose is flexible and vulnerable to screen influence from messages about perfect bodies included in advertising and programming and it is practical to visualize that each of these body messages is ‘one strike of a chisel sculpting the ideal body inside a young woman’s mind’ (Gilbert et al, 2002).

Change Through the decades

The woman’s ideal body image has become continuously smaller over the past century. ‘From the middle ages the rounder reproductive figure was considered attractive and plumpness was erotic and fashionable.’(Ogden, 2003). In the 1600s, paintings Rubens did of women portrayed them as having full rounded hips and breasts.

The aspiration of the thin ideal body was evident in the 1920’s when women bound their breasts and used starvation diets and exercise to attain the ideal body shape (Silverstein et al, 1986). This is relevant to today, as in 2000 Victoria Beckham was criticised for being too thin and promoting starvation diets to achieve the size zero (Reid, 2000).

The ideal body image altered with the popularity of actresses such as Jane Russell (1940s) and Marilyn Monroe (1950s) who were known for their curves and big breasts.

However the ideal body shape of the 1920s made a comeback towards the end of the1950s with Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly and led to the new standard of thinness set by Twiggy in the 1960s (Grogan, 1999).

Can Twiggy be blamed for the obsession with extremely thin models today? This is unlikely to be true, as it is the fashion industry expectation of extremely skinny models, which makes the ideal body image become smaller.

There is an obsession with skinny models today and in reality to compete in the model industry you need to be skinny. Although in saying this Sophie Dahl rose to fame in 1997 for being a size 16 model with large breasts just like Marilyn Monroe, the difference being she was made feel bad about being that size and so has slimmed down to a size eight which is probably too skinny for her body shape (Ask men, 2004). ‘The British model was credited with helping to bring back the curves into Nineties fashion, mesmerising designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Jean-Paul Gaultier with her voluptuous Fifties look’ (Hello).

Body Shape of Models

Silverstein et al researched the body shapes of models as portrayed in women’s magazines and speculated that they have become less curvaceous since the 1950s. Morris, Cooper and Cooper (1989) observed the physical characteristics of models from a London Agency which recruits models for magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Own and came to the conclusion that models have become more tubular (Ogden, 2003). Data has shown that overweight women have practically disappeared as models in women’s magazines in the last 35 years (Snow& Harris, 1986). Research has shown that Miss America Pageant participants have become slimmer since 1960 (Garner et al, 1980). Film actresses have also become thinner since 1950 (Silverstein, Peterson and Perdue, 1986) and female actors, advertisers, models and newsreaders are overpoweringly young, beautiful and slim (Kilbourne, 1994). Even Barbie has become slimmer since being introduced in 1959 (Freedman, 1986).

Despite rumour that big models are in vogue or that curves are fashionable the desirable size for a woman has dropped over the last few decades so that the icon of feminine beauty from the 1950’s, Marilyn Monroe- a size 16, would now be perceived as fat (Frost, 2001).

Thinness equals attractiveness

If the media is portraying women differently then this may impact how women are viewed. If they are depicted as being increasingly thin this may influence our conceptualization of what it means to be a woman (Ogden, 2003).

If media images of women are getting thinner, then a larger size reveals unattractiveness and thinness is associated with attractiveness (Ogden, 2003).

Orbach has written vastly about the significance of thinness in the context of dieting and eating disorders (1978, 1986). He disputes that thinness and body weight signify a variety of meanings and how women view and experience their bodies relates to the cultural features (1986, p70).

Theory

‘Psychological theories and early research evidence suggest that the media can influence the development and maintenance of eating problems.’(Dolan et al, 1994). Socio-cultural factors appear to offer the best way to clarify why so many women suffer from eating problems. The role of the media is to inform girls and young women what their obsessions should be. The ‘culture of femininity’ (women’s study group, 1978) concentrates on the depiction of an ideal body. For many women media images generate strong emotional reactions such as body dissatisfaction and the aspiration to achieve the ideal body. Such reactions might instigate the sequence of dietary control and binge eating which can be established as a sign of the development of an eating disorder (Slade, 1982; Lacey, 1986).

‘It has been argued that this media presentation of thin images as the ideal is a major contributor to current high levels of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders in women (Cash et al, 2004).’

Social learning theory concentrates on the strong influence of role models upon the growth of self-identity during adolescence. Bandura (1977) assumes that the most influential role models are those who the individuals distinguish as like themselves. The media portray role models, which adolescent girls can use in their quest for self-identity. These images are alluring as they provide a direction for teenage worries with regard to bodily changes during puberty. For example the image of anorexic celebrities such as Mary Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie as portrayed in popular fashion magazines, which young girls regularly read. The mass media portray an ideal body shape for women, and image- vulnerable teenage girls feel pressure to match up to that ideal (Dolan et al, 1994). Such as images of Victoria Beckham, a popular fashion icon portraying the size zero. Young girls look up to women like Victoria Beckham and want to be like her. In relation to this theory there has become a patriarchal side to journalism in the way that western consumer entrepreneurship requires women to believe their bodies are insufficient, so that they will spend huge amounts of money on merchandise to ease this perception of inadequacy. This patriarchal journalism has led theorists believing that it has led to the formation of insecurity which has effected women’s control and capability as human beings leaving them feeling devalued and estranged from themselves (Frost, 2001).

The media’s ever-present use of thinness as the ideal norm of bodily attractiveness for women is likely to trigger dissatisfaction and anxiety in the large amount of women whose bodies do not correspond to this ideal (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson& Kelly, 1986; Anderson & DiDomenico, 1992).

Solutions

Eating problems seem to be a sign of the conflicts surrounding the growth of women’s psychosocial personality in a society where female identity is associated considerably with body image and appearance, and where non- thinness in women is considered an unattractive attribute (Dolan et al, 1994).

If the media are proven to cause eating psychopathology then the best way to prevent them causing eating problems in women is to change the images and messages that the media portray. It would be more worthwhile for the media to use an extensive variety of models of different sizes and shapes. This would dissuade the idealization of an unattainable form and promote readers to see a broad range of body shapes as acceptable (Dolan et al, 1994).

Although this is a good strategy the media would not agree to this type of intervention as the images are used in the magazines for a reason such as increasing circulation or making a profit. When a single ideal body image is revealed, the majority of the population are unlikely to attain that ideal. Unless the media are prepared to encourage a broad range of body shapes as acceptable, then there will continue to be an ideal form to which the public desire (Dolan et al, 1994).

Content analysis has exposed that women are perceived as abnormally thin in the media. Magazines targeted at girls and young women reveal conventional slim images of attractiveness.

Women with eating disorders or body image dissatisfaction were more likely to compare their body image to that of celebrities (Grogan, 2008).

In 1996 Omega, a leading watch manufacturer, withdrew its advertising from Vogue magazine. The manufacturer criticized Vogue for using models in its fashion pages that were so skinny they looked anorexic (Boseley, 1996).

‘The lollipop silhouette, long-favoured by the female stars of American sitcoms, which involves disproportionately large heads wobbling a top stick-thin body does not say rich and it doesn’t say clever (Vernon, 2001).’ There are still celebrities today who possess lollipop heads such as Mary Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie.

Little seems to have changed with regard to media coverage of skinny models and actresses although there have been certain advertising campaigns which have confronted the thin ideal such as the British campaign for Real Beauty which is sponsored by Dove. However this campaign has not influenced magazines to change the images they use and they continue to use young slim models (Bordo, 2003; Strahan et al, 2006).

Advertisers may dispute that only slim models sell merchandise but recent research found evidence which proves that it is attractiveness, instead of the size of models which is vital in making products eye-catching to consumers (Halliwell and Dittmar, 2004).

Renee Engeln-Maddox (2005) has recommended that as many women make comparisons with media ideals, training women to concentrate on making downward comparisons with the parts of the body that are better than those of the model’s may be useful. She disputes that urging women to concentrate on the positives may be a successful way to defy the negative impact of upward comparisons (Grogan, 2008).

Rita Freedman (1990) proposes that cognitive-behavioural therapy could be used to teach people how to defy media pressure, through challenging “damaged cognitions” and creating new approaches of conceptualizing incoming information (Grogan, 2008).

Interviews done by Grogan with women propose that many women are unhappy and angry about the constricted range of images depicted in the media. Several academics are confronting media organizations to persuade them to change. The media are reacting slowly and although there is no considerable drift towards more realistic photographic models yet, at least the magazines are beginning to publish stories about the dangers of dieting and the significance of recognizing a variety of body shapes (Grogan, 2008).

The media and fashion models are appointed as the most powerful source of the pressure to be skinny. Women diagnosed with eating disorders also indicate that the models in fashion magazines helped to prompt their eating disorder (Cash et al, 2004).

However, there appears to have been a change in approach these magazines have taken, specifically Heat magazine (Heat, 2008) as they now are showing images of more curvy celebrities and emphasizing how good it is that they are curvy rather than looking anorexic. They are promoting the image of the curvy celebrity who is, after all, a role model to teenagers and young women who aspire to be and look like these celebrities. These stars have gone from looking like skin and bone to looking sexy and healthy and it is important to promote this image as this is what we should all attempt to achieve, not the anorexic body with bones jutting out (Heat, 2008).

To conclude, it is evident that the portrayal of the thin ideal in the media puts pressure on young women to conform to this ideal. These media images may indirectly cause eating disorders but only contribute to a small part of this and it is not proven if it actually contributes. In order for there not to be such a cultural pressure on young women to achieve this thin ideal it is important for journalism to acknowledge that these celebrities are too skinny. They already seem to be changing their approach and instead of encouraging celebrities to attain the size zero they are promoting the curvy figure and how it makes them look sexy and healthy. The strategies mentioned above also seem a good idea in tackling the issue of media depiction of the ideal body image and lack of a diverse range of body images shown in magazines and other media sources today.

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