The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on Women's Self-Objectification, Mood, and Body Image

Author: Brit harper and Marika Tiggemann

Source:

• Background: Western women are more pressured to the thin ideal of beauty. Magazines have been accused of praising the thin ideal as social norms. There has been a correlation between eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, the drive for thinness, and magazine advertisements. The effects were body dissatisfaction, negative mood, and negative self-perception of physical attractiveness. Fredrickson and Roberts' objectification theory asserts that women are uniquely subjected to cultural and interpersonal experiences in which the female body is inspected, evaluated, and treated as an object valued primarily for its use to others.
• Argument: The central purpose of this study was to examine whether viewing thin ideal media images would increase state self-objectification, negative affect and body dissatisfaction in young Austrian women.
  ~Participants who view images featuring a thin-idealized woman will exhibit higher state of self-objectification, appearance anxiety, negative mood and body dissatisfaction than participants who view product control images.
  ~ Viewing images featuring thin-idealized woman with men will produce higher levels of state self-objectification, appearance anxiety, negative mood, and body dissatisfaction than images a thin-idealized woman only.
• Method: This study included 90 female students. Participants were engaged in a series of questionnaires regarding rating image types from recent fashion magazines, consumer habits, consumer response to advertisement, recall products from advertisement, state of self-objectification before and after viewing advertisements, appearance anxiety, negative mood and body dissatisfaction, and trait self-objectification.
• Results:
  ~State of Self-Objectification: The state of self-objectification was higher in the thin-idealized conditions than in the product control, but there was no significant difference between female with male advertisements. The results supported hypothesis one, not hypothesis two.
  ~Appearance Anxiety: Anxiety from weight related issues were higher in thin-idealized conditions than product condition, but there was no difference between advertisements with thin women only and women and men.
  ~Negative Mood: Negative mood was more significant with participants that viewed thin idealized images than participants that viewed products control advertisements. There was no difference between women only ads and women and men ads.
  ~Body Dissatisfaction: Participants that viewed thin-idealized ads experienced more body dissatisfaction than participants that viewed product controlled ads. There was no difference between ads with women only or women and men ads.
  
• Personal thoughts: I have noticed that the thin-idealized look for women is not solely magazines' and media's fault because it is the type of body most people like on a woman. Preference in women body has changed through out the years. For example, Marilyn Monroe was considered to have a spectacular body back in 1950's. By today standards, she would be considered a plus size. I believe that it is more in the preference of the sex you are trying to attract. I was born and raised in OC with all the exposure to thin-idealized images, but I do not have self-esteem issues if my body is not like the models. Also, my preference in men is not the "ideal" look like the men in magazines. I prefer men that have a bigger build, I find moderate beer bellies are very cute, and hairy men really turns me on. Not your typical "male model" look, but this is what I like and it was not influenced by the media. The media can only portrays what people want to see and most people want to see thin women because they find it attractive. Media only goes with the trends including body preferences.