Influence of Magazines on College-Age Females’ Body Image
Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media’s idea of the “perfect” body. These unrealistic images are portrayed in women’s magazines all over the country. The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough. The average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Annually, magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Magazines sell body dissatisfaction to their readers through unrealistic images of women, as well as dieting and exercise information. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size, but today’s standard is much smaller. As the beauty ideal continues to get smaller in our society, body image within American women continues to plummet. Magazines portray and compare happiness with being thin; therefore some feel if they are not thin, then they are not happy. As with women of all ages, many college-age women are believed to hold unrealistic ideals of body shape and size, ideals that can be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.
Our study, focused on women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison that are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. We wanted to identify the specific effects that the magazine portrayal of the “perfect” body has on college-age women’s body image and self-esteem. We hypothesized that this portrayal contributes to women having negative body images and self-esteem due to the reinforcement of body shapes and sizes in magazines that are unrealistic for most women to attain. In our study we defined body image as the subjective concept of one’s physical appearance based on self-observation and the reaction of others. We defined self-esteem as the positive and negative evaluations people have of themselves. The purpose of this study was to test the influence of women’s health/fitness and beauty/fashion magazines on a woman’s perception of her body through several distinct methods.
The first method used to collect data was a survey administered to forty college-age women around the UW-Madison campus. The survey focused on body image, self-esteem and thoughts about magazines. The second method used was an observation, consisting of four groups of two college-age women who were asked to discuss their feelings and attitudes toward a fashion/beauty magazine and a health/fitness magazine. The third method conducted was in-depth interviews of four college-age women using extensive questions to gain additional information on whether college-age women are affected by the magazine industry’s culture of thinness. The fourth method was an experiment using twelve college-age women who were divided into three separate groups with each group being assigned one of three magazines: a health/fitness magazine, a beauty/fashion magazine or a news magazine. After reading the magazines, the women were given a survey very similar to the one used in method one. The four methods combined allowed us to address our hypothesis that college-age women have negative body images and self-esteem due to the culture of thinness which the magazine industry portrays to women. Several examples of prior research on this topic provided additional context for study.
Cusumano and Thompson (1997) examine the relative influences of media exposure, awareness of societal pressures regarding appearance and internalization of this socio-culture pressure on body image, eating disturbance and self-esteem in “Body Image and body shape ideals in magazines: Exposure, awareness and internalization.” The college-age women were surveyed through seven questionnaires for the type of magazines they read, along with the time spent reading each magazine. The overall body shapes and breast sizes that were promoted in these magazines were then identified and quantified. They found it was important to use the body and breast variables separately. Cusumano and Thompson also found a distinct lack of a relationship between exposure to body size ideals and measures of body satisfaction, eating disturbance, self-esteem and one’s own actual degree of obesity. Internalization of social norms of appearance accounted for significant and substantial variance, whereas exposure was not.
Thomsen’s (2002) study “Health and Beauty Magazine Reading and Body Shape concerns among a group of college women,” proposed testing a structural equation model which incorporates several mediating processes through which beauty/fashion, health/fitness magazines might influence the college-age female’s fear of being fat. He explores the potential direct and indirect effects of two additional mediating influences: “hope and the internalized belief that men expect women to be thin.” Three key findings emerge from this study. The first is women’s belief about men’s preferences or expectations for female thinness were the strongest predictor of body shape and size concerns. Although two types of magazines were studied, only health and fitness magazine readings were directly linked to body shape and size concerns. Finally, hope was not influenced by the reading, expected future weight gain and loss, and body shape and size concerns; this finding was not anticipated.
Turner, Hamilton, Jacobs, Angood and Dwyer’s (1997) study “The influence of fashion magazines on the body image satisfaction of college women: An exploratory analysis” is an experimental study with a sample of thirty-nine undergraduate women who were randomly assigned to two different treatments. One treatment was to view a fashion magazine and the other to view a news magazine. After viewing was completed, both treatments took a body image survey. The women assigned to the fashion magazine treatment indicated a lower self-image than the women assigned to the news magazine treatment. Although the two groups of women in the study did not differ significantly in height or weight, those who read fashion magazines prior to completing a body image satisfaction survey desired to weigh less and perceived themselves more negatively than did those who read news magazines. Exposure to fashion magazines was related to women’s greater preoccupation with being thin, dissatisfaction with their bodies, frustration about weight, and fear about deviating from the thin standard.
Rabak-Wagener, Eickhoff-Shemek, and Kelly-Vance (1998) studied the effects of unrealistic body shapes in magazines on college-age women in “The Effect of Media Analysis and Behaviors regarding Body Image Among College Students.” They also sought to discover whether or not a media analysis program helped young women change their attitudes and beliefs about body image. The fist method they used was a survey to measure respondents’ beliefs and behaviors regarding fashion-advertising images. After the survey, the large group was then split into a comparison and an intervention group. The intervention group participated in a 6.5-hour program analyzing, critiquing, and learning about the fashion industry and their methods of advertising. After the program both groups were surveyed again. On the pre-test there was no significant difference between the intervention and comparison groups. On the post-test, however, students in the intervention group reported significant changes in their perceptions of body image while the comparison group reported no significant changes. This study and its findings are important because they suggest that magazines do influence the way women feel about their bodies. The study is also somewhat encouraging because it suggests that media analysis can be a valuable tool in changing college-age women’s beliefs about the ideal body.
Marian Morry and Sandra Staska’s (2001) “Magazine exposure: internalization, self-objectification, eating attitudes and body satisfaction in male and female university students,” studies the relationship between magazines and people’s body image. The study emphasizes social and cultural pressure toward thinness in women through media portrayal of the ideal female body. The study used 150 university students, which were tested by giving them equal exposure to magazines, a questionnaire and interviews on their eating habits, recognition of socio-cultural attitudes, and body shape. The study’s main findings were that media exposure to the “ideal” form is being internalized. The exposure is related to problematic eating patterns, self-objectification and body shame.
Our hypothesis concerning the effects of magazines correlates with the results of the previous studies. Our goal was to prove that college-age women’s body image and self-esteem are negatively affected by the magazine industry’s portrayal of thinness. We began our data collection with a survey of forty college-age women around the UW-Madison campus.
Analyzing the Survey Data: The Significance of the Statistics Behind the Respondents Answers
Our first method was a survey using availability sampling designed to ask college-age women questions regarding their body image and self-esteem in relation to the magazines that they read. We collected forty surveys around the UW-Madison campus from women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. Approximately eighty five percent of the women surveyed were white and the majority of the women were twenty-one years of age. Most of the women perceived themselves as average weight. The survey included five questions regarding the respondents’ demographics and twenty-five questions concerning their body image and self-esteem related to magazine depictions. Our goal for this survey was to get an understanding of how the magazines’ influence shapes the women’s attitude pertaining to her body image and self-esteem. We hypothesized that the way in which a magazine depiction will affect a woman is dependent upon the way in which she feels about her body in general. Table One (see Appendix A) displays the questions that were asked in the survey, the mean response and the significant frequencies discovered by the answers from the respondents.
Frequency Analysis
The frequency analysis provides information on the percentages of answers to each question. Some interesting findings provided by the frequency analysis are: the majority of women were between 5’3” and 5’8” and 110-149lbs. The percentage of respondents who were sometimes or often happy with their body shape or size was seventy-five percent. Over half, sixty percent, of women rarely or never felt that their body was “normal” compared to magazine body depictions. A significant amount, ninety-three percent, of women rarely or never believe that magazines portray normal body images for women. Approximately forty-three percent of the respondents sometimes to always feel that female models in magazines have the ideal body shape and size. Of our respondents, seventy-three percent sometimes or always feel that they would be more attractive if they look like a magazine model. Even though seventy-three percent rarely or never feel that it would be good for their health if their body size and shape were similar to those of fashion models, fifty-five percent would feel more satisfied if their body looked more like a magazine model. Out of the forty women surveyed, sixty-eight percent of women often or always think about their body. An overwhelming, seventy percent of the respondents sometimes or always have negative thoughts about their body. (See Table 1 for significant frequency values). This data shows that although our respondents do not see models as normal size they do believe that the models have ideal shape and size.
Average Responses
The means are presented in Table Two. One group of our respondents reported that they always feel that models have the ideal body shape and size. This same group reported that they are only sometimes happy with their own body shape and size. The respondents also said that they often to always make decisions about dieting and exercise based on looks, not health. They also reported that they always think about their bodies, and often to always have negative thoughts about their bodies.
Another notable group are those respondents who reported that they always feel that they would be more attractive if their bodies looked more like those of magazine models. This group reported that they perceive themselves as overweight, are rarely happy with their bodies, and always make decisions about dieting and exercise based on looks. As with the previously noted group, they also said that they often think about their bodies, and often have negative thoughts about their bodies.
A final group worth noting is the respondents who said that female magazine models always affect their body image. This group reported that they are rarely to sometimes happy with their body shape and size, always thinking about their bodies, and often to always have negative thoughts about their bodies.
The mean responses suggest that those respondents who reported that magazines always affect them are more likely to be negatively affected by the magazines. The respondents, who reported that they always felt that magazines portrayed ideal images, or always felt that they would be more attractive if they looked more like magazine models, were more likely to report in having low body image and self-esteem. This finding suggests that while magazine models do not affect all women; those who are affected indicate that it is detrimental to their body image and self-esteem. Overall, these findings coincide with the hypothesis that magazines negatively affect the body image of college-age women, but also suggest that there is only a select group of people who are affected by them. (See Table Two, Appendix A)
Conclusion
Previous studies have shown that college-age women are affected by the magazine industry’s use of thin models in the advertisements; however, some studies have proven that our data is not statistically insignificant. For example, Cusumano and Thompson (1997) discovered that internalization of social norms of appearance accounted for significant and substantial variance, whereas exposure to magazines did not. In opposition to our data, the Thomsen (2002) study discovered that only health/fitness magazines were directly linked to body shape and size concerns. Our findings showed that one particular magazine, either health/fitness or fashion/beauty, did not influence the college-age women’s body shape and size concerns, one way or the other.
Coinciding with the data collected in the Thomsen (2002) study, Turner, Hamilton, Jacobs, Angood and Dwyer (1997) discovered that exposure to fashion magazines was related to women’s greater preoccupation with being thin, dissatisfaction with their bodies, frustration about weight, and fear about deviating from the thin standard. Once again, our data did not find these statements to be true, at least among the majority of our sample population. Many of the college-age women acknowledged that they would like to look like female magazine models, but they did not feel the models had a direct impression on their own body image and self-esteem.
Earlier the internalization process was discussed and our research team hypothesized that this process may be an underlying factor in many of the women in our study. Morry and Staska’s (2001) main findings were that media exposure to the “ideal” body is being internalized. Although our data seems to be leaning toward this finding, it is unable to be a conclusive finding to our study because internalization is unable to be proven through the methods that we used.
Overall, our study has concluded that magazine models do not influence women's body image or self-esteem. In method one, we concluded that whether magazine models affect women is dependent upon the women’s general self-esteem and body image. Our research group also uncovered that most college-age women never feel as if magazine models have the ideal body shape, but despite this, many college-age women still strive to attain this unrealistic ideal. The findings discovered in method two, which coincide with our results from method one, suggest that college-age women feel that the body shape of female models in magazines is an unnatural shape. Our method three data, using in-depth interviews, found that female models in magazines negatively affect the body image of college-age women. Unlike our survey results, women commented that they did not feel thin enough to meet social standards. However, as with the data in method one, we found that women who are have average to high self-esteem are not influenced by the models in magazines. Lastly, our data from method four was not significant to our study because the data was scattered, suggesting that the type of magazine read prior to the body image survey did not have significant impact on the respondents’ answers.
Our results from the overall study are inconsistent with our hypothesis, which is that female models in magazines influence college-age women’s body image and self-esteem. Everyday women read fashion/beauty or health/fitness magazines; however, our study infers that either college-age women are not influenced by the magazines due to their confidence with their bodies or the influence of the magazines industry’s portrayal of thinness has already been internalized by the age of eighteen to twenty four. Our hope is that with the future research techniques suggest below, a more conclusive study can be done to correlate our hypothesis with the data received from the respondents.
What this means:
Differing to the research in which I have already gained, the above case studies suggests that college students are not effected by the images of models represented within women's magazines. This may be used as a oppositional study within my essay.
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