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".