Advertisements Negatively Impact People's Body Image By Creating Unrealistic Beauty Standards

Advertisements Negatively Impact People's Body Image By Creating Unrealistic Beauty Standards 

• Advertisements tell women and girls how they are supposed to look by creating an "ideal female beauty" by using tools such as Photoshop that create impossible beauty standards 

• Body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors among children and teens appear to be on the rise in the U.S., while appearance ideals have become increasingly unrealistic

• Some companies such as Dove fight back against unrealistic beauty standards by having campaigns that promote a positive body image 

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 the women in advertisements. Women feel like they need to have this "ideal female look" and are risking their health in order to achieve it. 

Photoshop and other tools create impossible beauty standards by altering images 
In almost every image of women you see in advertisements the image has been altered. Airbrushing skin, slimming waist, enlarging features all are examples of what Photoshop can do to enhance a person.  Photoshop not only alters our photos but it also alters our expectations of what real beauty is. It creates these unrealistic beauty standards that no one can normally achieve. Even though it is near to impossible to actually have the body type of the women we see in advertisements, that doesn't stop women from trying. 

Victoria's Secret is a lingerie company and they put out a campaign called "The Perfect 'Body'". This slogan was paired with an image of extremely thin lingerie models. Their campaign suggests that the perfect body is that of the slim models in the ad and it fails to celebrate the diversity of different body types. The average model is 5'10" and weighs 107 while the average women is 5'4" and weights 166. In no way should a perfect body be the body type that only 5% of women have. Victoria's Secret ended up getting a lot of criticism for this campaign, they did not publicly apologize but they changed the slogan to "A Body For Every Body". 

Body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors among children and teens appear to be on the rise in the U.S., while appearance ideals have become increasingly unrealistic
In a national survey of girls age 13 to 17 they found that nearly half  wished they were as skinny as the models they saw in fashion magazines and say fashion magazines gave them a body image to strive for. A study found that of American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69% say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape and 47% say the pictures make them want to lose weight. These statistics are startling, and reveal that such young girls already feel pressure to look like the women they see in magazines. Body dissatisfaction is linked to mental health problems such as eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. Anorexia nervosa is one eating disorder that causes people to obsess about their weight and what they eat. A person that suffers from anorexia nervosa may engage in extreme dieting or exercise to lose weight and may even resort to diet pills or laxatives.  20 years ago the average model only weighed 8% less than the average woman and now they weigh 23% less. Most models have a weight that would be considered anorexic. There are as many as 40 million people in the United States who suffer from an eating disorder and 90% of those people are women. A study found that the number of children with eating disorders has risen 116% between 1999 and 2006. Another study also found that there is a shocking number of children who feel that their body image is too fat. The results of the study are in the graph below. 

Sina Lee is a women studies professor at the University of Maryland. She answers questions about how the media influences people and how advertising affects women.

Some companies such as Dove are fighting back against unrealistic beauty standards 

Dove is a personal care company that started a campaign for real beauty in 2004. The goal of their campaign is to widen the definition of beautiful because they found that the current definition of beauty had become limiting and unattainable. In their study, they found that only 2% of women would consider themselves beautiful. To address this issue they created many different campaigns that feature "real" and diverse women. They feature women of all age, color, shapes and sizes and they don't use Photoshop or airbrush on any of the images. Their goal is to celebrate the differences of everyone's body and encourage women to be comfortable in their own skin. Other companies such as American Eagle have joined Dove in fighting against unrealistic beauty standards. In their effort to promote realistic body image in teens, they didn't use Photoshop on any of their images in their ads for the Aerie lingerie line. They called this campaign "Aerie Real" and on their new website they allow online shoppers to see how the bra or underwear she wants will look on a model with a similar body shape as her. Not only companies but also celebrities have spoken out about the impossible beauty standards and against Photoshop. Kate Winslet is an actress and she was outraged when GQ magazine retouched her photo and slimmed her down when she was on the cover of their magazine. She spoke out against the ad and said "The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I do not aspire to look like that". 

FDA warned KIND bars to change their label on four of their bars because they weren't as healthy as labels claimed

• FDA sent KIND healthy snacks a warning letter asking them to remove the word "healthy" from four of their bars 

• KIND made claims that their bars were "healthy" "no trans fats" and "plus" without meeting requirements to do so

• FDA said to claim that something is healthy, a food must have no more than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving and contain no more than 15 percent of its calories from saturated fat

The FDA sent KIND Healthy Snacks a warning letter asking them to remove the word healthy from four of their bars since they violated labeling rules by putting the word "healthy" on some of their bars that did not meet healthy standards. The four bars that did not meet healthy requirements were Almond & Apricot, Almond & Coconut, Plus Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate + Protein, and Plus Dark Chocolate Cherry Cashew + Antioxidants. 

The FDA has such strict definitions of nutrition content claims so that any company can't label their food healthy just for marketing purposes. According to the FDA for something to be labeled as healthy a food must have no more than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving and contain no more than 15 percent of its calories from saturated fat. These bars did not meet those requirements  for example the Fruit & Nut Almond & Coconut bar contained 5 grams of saturated fat per 40 grams of the food. 

Kind released a statement saying that they are complying with the FDAs requests and changing their labels but not their recipes. They also wanted their customers to know that there are no quality or safety issues with their products. 


The three sources of this story that I analyzed were from Fox News , npr, and The Huffington Post.  Out of these three sources the best one was Fox News because it was the most factual and the worst was npr since it lacked information. 

The article written by Fox news was broken down into three categories the first was "The FDA's warning letter". They go more in depth than any other source in discussing the requirements that the FDA has for a food to be labeled as healthy. They mention not only about how much saturated fat is needed to be considered healthy but also how much sodium, vitamins, fiber, calcium, iron and protein. They also talk about what is needed to label a food as plus or "+", which is 10 percent more of the daily reference value of certain level of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, or when its fortified with nutrients. Both the Plus Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate + Protein and Plus Dark Chocolate Cherry Cashew + Antioxidants violate the FDA rules because they are neither fortified or claim to outrank an average snack bar in nutrients but they are both labeled as plus. The second section of their article was "the response from KIND". They talk about KINDs response letter and bring up how KIND stated that nuts, which is a key ingredient in all of their bars, as the source of "nutritious fats that exceed the amount allowed under the FDA's standard." Their third section was "experts weigh in" and they bring in the opinion of experts on what they think of KIND bars. They have quotes from two different professionals, Sara-Jane Bedwell a registered dietitian and Dr. Walter Willet who is chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard. Willet said "It's a bit ridiculous that saturated fat from nuts should be counted against a product, because nuts are about one of the healthiest choices you could possibly make". Bedwell also agrees that nuts are a healthy source of fat although she supports how the FDA regulates how food is marketed. 

I thought that Fox has the best article mostly because of how they broke down the article into different sections since it allowed the reader to skim and see the different parts of the story

without having to read the entire article. The only issues I had with their article was the lack of visuals they had, they only have one photo in the beginning of the article and they could of used a few more. Their headline also was not explanatory, it was "What the FDA's warning to KIND bars really means". Their headline did not mention what the warning FDA gave to KIND was or why they gave the warning. 

I found that The Huffington Post article was very similar to the Fox News one but it was not broken down into sections like Fox News was so that made it more difficult to read. The Huffington Post also included numerous facts about what is required to put healthy on a label as well as what is required to label something as plus. They heavily discuss the health benefits of nuts and why they might be considered unhealthy. They include, unlike any other source, a quote from the VP of communications at KIND who said "Most of the fats in our bars come from nuts and are actually monounsaturated fats (good fats), Nuts do contain a small amount of unsaturated fats. The saturated fats in our bars come from a mix of ingredients nuts, coconut or palm oil." I liked how this source included that quote from KIND because it referenced KIND stating something other than the statement that they released. I also liked how much they talked about  the health benefits of nuts and they brought in a study, for example they stated one that said consumption of nuts is linked to lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and lower mortality. They also did not have a good explanatory headline, their headline read "Why the FDA action against KIND bar doesn't mean they're unhealthy". This does not explain what action the FDA took against KIND or why they took action at all. 

I thought that the article from npr was the worst out of the three articles I analyzed because of its lack of information. Both the Fox News and The Huffington Post was filled with information about what is considered healthy or plus by the FDA. They also contained facts about the health benefits of nuts. The npr article did not have much information about either of those. They did define what the FDA considers healthy but then they also mentioned how the bars are labeled as plus and they did not define what the FDA requires to be labeled as plus. The majority of the rest of the article discussed Walter Willet and KIND's response to the FDA's letter. Since they heavily discuss the response to the letter they seem biased against the FDA as the article states "The FDA seems to be lagging, in part because the agency doesn't revise its guidelines as frequently". The title was also no explanatory it read "Nut so fast, KIND bar: FDA smacks snacks on health claims". They like the other articles failed to mention what the FDA reported about KIND bars and why they did so. This article also included only one picture at the top of the article of a few bars that had no label so it was unclear if they were KIND bars or not. 

I felt that some things that npr could do for a better article included: 

• Change the title of the article to something that is more explanatory
• Include more statistics and facts about the FDA's guidelines and requirements to be considered "healthy" or "plus"
• Include information about the health benefits of nuts and why they are considered unhealthy 
• Incorporate more visuals or pictures in the article 

While none of the articles I analyzed had a great explanatory headline Fox News and The Huffington Post included much more information about the FDA regulations than npr did. They also included more information about why the KIND bars are considered unhealthy, which is because of all the nuts they contain. Npr did not include that much information about KIND bars itself but more focused on their response to it which made them seem biased against the FDA. 

Photo and cartoon of gun control

The first picture is a photo of a women holding a poster that is advocating gun control after Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook was an elementary school shooting where 20 children were killed. The women in the picture looks upset so we can guess that maybe she lost a child or knew one that was killed. It also looks the the picture could have been taken at a protest for gun control because you can see other people in the background.


The second picture is a cartoon that is also advocating gun control. There is a chalkboard with the United States on it and it shows the amount of school shootings that have happened in the past 18 months. There is a student at his desk with his head down so he looks very upset about the number of shootings that have happened.





Both the picture and the cartoon are advocating gun control because of school shootings. While the picture connects why there should be gun control to a specific school shooting, the cartoon looks at the bigger picture and examines the number of school shootings there have been in such a short time. Both of these images have someone in it who looks upset which tries to touch on the emotional side how heartbreaking a shooting at a school can be. Although one touches on a very specific event ad the other much more general they are both trying to get to the same goal of gun control.

First Post

My name is Sabrina and I am from New York. I am a freshman at the University of Maryland and I am majoring in communications. I am interested in working in public relations. I am very excited for this class.