Prompt: Write an 8-10 page research paper, MLA style, based on research on a chose subject. My subject is: how does the fashion industry portray what beauty is and the affect it has on the body image of young teens and women. We are supposed to integrate 5-10 sources appropriately. I have never written a research paper before so I did have some trouble writing and organizing the information. I would appreciate any help as far as content and organization goes. Anything is more than welcomed and appreciated :) This is the first rough draft.
Created in Their Image
Art history is a wonderful class to get an insight on a time period's and culture's views of what is beauty is in women. One of the world's oldest art pieces, "Venus of Willendorf," is a sculpture depicting a very voluptuous, "pear-shaped" woman who was revered as the essence of beauty. Gradually, you see the depiction of beauty get skinnier and skinnier until you come to modern days where the idealized woman weighs 23% less than the average "real life" woman (Lovett, Edward). These images are at are immediate attention as the fashion industry is everywhere we look: malls, television, magazines, and our favorite clothing stores. It's inescapable. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm one of those overweight girls sitting in front of a TV watching "Project Runway" or the Victoria Secret Models strutting the runway wishing I could be that skinny and that pretty, knowing in the back of my mind that it just won't happen in this lifetime. I'm not alone though. Through magazines, television, and runway shows, the fashion industry uses images of dangerously thin models to portray what the ideal beauty is, leading to body image issues among young women.
With technology today, young women and teenagers cannot escape the media with monumental presence of magazines, internet, media sites, etc. With the fashion industry's rise in accessibility to viewers, models have become increasingly thin. It was noted in the journal, "No Longer just a Pretty Face that, "Particularly striking is the finding that not only are the models becoming thinner, but that the public has also been increasingly exposed to depictions of their bodies,"( Sypek, Gray, and Ahrens). Also noted in this journal was the fact that images of women moved from mostly face shots to full body shots as we have today. In magazines, today women's bodies are displayed to the whole world. Never do we see a plus size model in these magazines that tote the latest fashions or are sitting on top of a fancy car. It would abhor the modern day reader and not because we have the natural tendency to see plus as ugly but because we were trained to. Edward Lovett, writer for ABC News in his article, "Most Models Meet Criteria for Anorexia," revealed that, "Twenty years ago, the average fashion model weighed 9 percent less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23 percent less." This a significant amount over the course of twenty years and becomes alarming considering how much access we to all the media. Though we may not know it, these images are consuming our minds as more and more young women strive to meet these unattainable standards. Even the models who work these runways or shows have to take extreme measures to sculpt their body for the media such as Adriana Lima, a Victoria Secret model, who revealed that her diet avoids solids foods altogether nine days before a show and, "drinks only protein shakes made with powdered egg, " (Cressman).
There's only so far an extreme diet will take these models. However, with the increase in sophisticated technology, there is another avenue for the fashion industry to acutely perfect their portrayal of what beauty is: Photoshop. With Photoshop, anyone can create anything. Lately, there has been an increase in the uncovering of images that have been altered, primarily with magazines and internet photos. Cate Young in her article, "Digital Manipulation in the Fashion Industry," states that, " The fashion industry is notorious for its heavy-handed use of digital manipulation software, and has fallen under criticism for introducing 'false images' into the mainstream and passing them off as real." These images are able to display this false beauty by erasing curves, cellulite, wrinkles, and other natural "imperfections" that women have. This inherently conveys the message that these are not what should be a part of a beautiful woman's body and is why women seek to eliminate cellulite and zap fat or love handles. If you do have these "imperfections," it only gnaws at your self-esteem. Even on the social media site, there has been numerous photos posted and shared of photo enhancements on the cover of magazines which further creates this sense of unattainable beauty that even our models cannot reach without extreme measures. The female body then becomes in a sense exploited to sell the fashion industry and through repeated exposure, women's ideas of what beauty is becomes molded. Karen De Perthuis in, "The Synthetic Ideal: the Fashion Model and Photographic Manipulation," supports this idea when she states that, "By a process of transubstantiation the fleshy, organic substance of the body is transformed into the artificial, synthetic substance of the fashion garment." In this sense, the fashion industry's portrayal of what beauty is "artificial" as it molds these women's bodies to fit their image. These images tell women that in order to beautiful, you have to be a certain height, weight, bone structure, and skin flawlessness. These tactics are used to sell the industry, but also have a detrimental effect on how women view their own bodies.
With the rise of eating disorders over the decades, one has to wonder why this is a ramping problem among young teens and women. It's no surprise that this rise in eating disorders is associated with the rise of this extremely thin image of women pictured in the media. These increasingly thin models and the widespread accessibility to views has an adverse affect on young women's perception of their own beauty as the fashion industry creates unattainable standards of beauty. The times are endless when I see pictures of these thin models cut out and taped to treadmills at public gyms as motivation or when I, myself, commit myself to a diet after watching a runway show or reading a fashion magazine. The fashion industry is so successful because women strive to imitate these women in terms of fashion and beauty. Along each image in the magazine are prices and locations of where you can buy the clothing but there's something deeper that goes on in the minds of women when viewing these pictures. They aren't merely shopping for the latest fashions, but are now shopping for the latest trends in beauty. However, these standards of beauty are near impossible to meet because they are the products of dangerous, extreme dieting and Photoshop. As a result, women become frustrated with their own bodies. Research has revealed that after viewing images of this "perfect beauty" created by the fashion industry, young women feel increasingly dissatisfied with their own bodies. In a meta-analysis, "which examined the effects of the mass media on female body image revealed that women reported feeling significantly worse after exposure to thin-ideal media images than after viewing average-sized or plus-sized media images," (Groesz, Levine, & Murnen). These images create this false ideal and though women may realize that these images are not what women in "real life" look like, the media constantly presents these types of images that it becomes overbearing in a sense. From personal experience and from conversations with other young women, the viewing of the thin ideal images creates a negative experience in our own bodies as we start to evaluate the imperfections we have and how we can fix them to imitate them. In the journal, "The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body Satisfaction: A Meta-Analytic Review," Groesz, Levine, and Murnen report, "Consistent with the findings of Posavac et al. (1998), women viewing the thin ideal felt significantly more dissatisfied about their bodies afterward and they also reported significantly more emotional distress." This negative portrayal of their own bodies leads to their own distress of their bodies as frustration builds and failure to reach the thin ideal becomes reality. The reason why is because in reality, the fashion industry's portrayal of beauty is merely a fantasy that seems to become real through television and magazines.
However, young women soak up these images presented to them and strive for this beauty perfection as they compare themselves to these models. It's not something that is done purposefully but is the result of the psychological processes that occur when we see these images. Though it's still a growing field of research, "a wealth of work in the area of appearance comparison has been conducted over the past 15 years illustration with correlational, experimental, and multidimensional scaling studies that females and males engage in appearance comparison processes that have detrimental effects on body image," (Birkeland, et al). When young women see the images of these super skinny models strutting on the runway, it sends a dangerous message that this is the model of beauty. As a result, a comparison happens and young women take extreme measures to be skinny. In the article, " The Role Of Social Comparison in The Effect Of Magazine Advertisements On Women's Mood And Body Dissatisfaction," Major, Testa, and Bylsma found in their study that, " when women compare themselves with the thin and beautiful images in the media, this almost invariably represents an upward social comparison in which they find themselves lacking, thus leading to negative mood and body dissatisfaction." This mood and body dissatisfaction can lead to a plethora of other problems such as eating disorders. It creates a very unhealthy environment and festers other problems. The social comparison that happens when young women view images of these thin ideals leads to an increase dissatisfaction, which ultimately leads to eating disorders and emotional stress. It's hard work at the gym that typically that long commitment and persistence to see the results one wants to see. It becomes discouraging and motivating at the same time to see these really skinny and beautiful models with perfect bodies as we begin to examine our own in comparison to the ones we see. As young women view these ideals presented by the fashion industry, they seek to imitate what they see which leads to emotional stress. Comparison happens in all avenues of life but when it comes down to body image, it becomes a more sensitive issue as Levine and Smolak point out in, "The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body Satisfaction: A Meta-Analytic Review," when they state that, " during late childhood and early adolescence, when social comparison plays a more significant role in self-perception, females who do not have the ideal body shape agonize about their bodies." It's something we all hear in our daily lives, "oh, I feel so fat," or " I wish I could be skinnier." Teenage rooms are often depicted as filled with images of models on their walls and even in Christina Aguilera's music video, "Beautiful," she creates a tells of a story where a young girl torments herself with images of thin models as she evaluates her own self in the mirror. Aguilera's point was that we are all beautiful regardless of what shape or size we are. However, it doesn't matter what kinds of motivational tools are out there for positive body image, the fashion industry tends to be a much a bigger and stronger influence on the minds of young women. Catterin et al in 2000 in the article, " If Only I were Thin like Her, maybe I could be Happy like her: the Self-implications of Associating a thin Female Ideal with Life Success," states that, " Similarly, a study on social comparison, body image, and the media showed that women who engaged in social comparisons with thin-ideal female media images in appearance-related commercials reported substantially more anger, anxiety, and depression than women who saw a non-appearance related commercial." The emotions of, "anger, anxiety, and depression" are the by-product of the fashion industry's portrayal of beauty as young women try to imitate these looks. As noted earlier, model Adriana Lima has to take extreme measures of basically starvation to look ideal for the Victoria Secret Angel's runway show so it's alarming to think of the even more extremes average size girls have to go to achieve this look. Regular diet and exercise do not yield the model look, it is the starvation and bulimic practices that do which cause health problems later on. As a result, these social comparisons and increase in body dissatisfaction lead to an increase in eating disorders among women. Grabe, Hyde, and Ward contend that, "because media presentations of women's bodies are so skewed, showcasing an ideal that is out of reach to most, adopting this reality may lead to decreased satisfaction with one's own body (e.g., Levine & Harrison, 2004) and to behaviors aimed at meeting this ideal, behaviors such as dieting, bingeing and purging, and skipping meals," in their research journal, "The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies" I have numerous friends and even my own sister who have strived so hard to be skinny that they would vomit after every meal or not eat for days. These models even have to go to these extremes to achieve their look which shows that their look is not natural. Their look is merely a product created by the fashion industry as there is, " extensive correlational evidence that supports the link between exposure to fashion magazines and body dissatisfaction (Harrison & Cantor, 1997), drive for thinness (Tiggemann, 2005b) and eating disorder symptomatology (Harrison, 2000; Stice, Schupat-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994; Stice & Shaw, 1994," (Grabe, Hyde, & Ward). This, "drive for thinness" can literally drive young women to the extremes of fad dieting and stress as this image eats at their own body image. The images presented by the fashion industry in the media are more than merely images, they are symbols for what beauty is in the eyes of the industry. This portrayal of beauty then blinds young women from their own beauty and from appreciating their own bodies.
The body image issue is a struggle faced by young women and teens every day, including myself. It starts with a fascination of the media by watching television shows and reading magazines to becoming obsessed with the ideal thin image. From this research, I have learned gained so much knowledge about the messages I receive from watching models on television and magazines and how that affects our own perception of our own bodies. The constant display of these ultra skinny and beautiful models has a detrimental effect on our minds while most of the images we the artificial products of Photoshop or the sad end of a model starving herself. The goal of this paper is to bring to light the dangers of the images we see, though they are for entertainment. It's important the fashion industry begin to incorporate models who reflect what a normal, American woman looks like, as opposed to the stick-thin models we see today. It's not mentally healthy for young teens and women to see these images and be conditioned to perceive these models as the ideal perfection for beauty. Yes, of course this type of entertainment is girly and fun. However, it's extremely essential that young women still see their own beauty and feel lovely in their own bodies. How the fashion industry portrays beauty is a fantasy and it is important a line is drawn between real life and this fantasy fashioned by the media. All women have the right to feel beautiful in their own bodies whether size 00 or size 16.
Works Cited
Grabe, Shelly, Janet Shibley Hyde, and L. Monique Ward. "The Role Of The Media In Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis Of Experimental And Correlational Studies." Psychological Bulletin 134.3 (2008): 460-476. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
Evans, Peggy Chin. ""If Only I Were Thin Like Her, Maybe I Could Be Happy Like Her": The Self-Implications Of Associating A Thin Female Ideal With Life Success." Psychology Of Women Quarterly 27.3 (2003): 209. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
De Perthuis, Karen. "The Synthetic Ideal: The Fashion Model And Photographic Manipulation." Fashion Theory: The Journal Of Dress, Body & Culture 9.4 (2005): 407-424. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
Sypeck, Mia Foley, James J. Gray, and Anthony H. Ahrens. "No Longer Just A Pretty Face: Fashion Magazines' Depictions Of Ideal Female Beauty From 1959 To 1999." International Journal Of Eating Disorders 36.3 (2004): 342-347. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
Lovett, Edward. "Most Models Meet Criteria for Anorexia, Size 6 Is Plus Size: Magazine." USA Today. Web. 12 January 2012.
Tiggemann, Marika and McGill, Belinda. "The Role Of Social Comparison In The Effect Of Magazine Advertisements On Women's Mood And Body Dissatisfaction." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2004, pp. 23-44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
Young, Cate. "Digital Manipulation in the Fashion Industry." The Quad, 4th Issue Vol.2. Web. 28 May 2013.
Grabe, Shelly, Hyde, Janet, and Ward, Monique L. "The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies." Psychological Bulletin. 2008, Vol. 134, No. 3, 460-476. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.
Robyn Birkeland, J. Kevin Thompson, Sylvia Herbozo, Megan Roehrig, Guy Cafri, Patricia van den Berg. " Media exposure, mood, and body image dissatisfaction: an experimental test of person versus product priming." Body Image. 2005, Vol. 1, 53-61.
Groesz, L. M., Levine, M. P. and Murnen, S. K. "The effect of experimental presentation of thin media images on body satisfaction: A meta-analytic review." Int. J. Eat. Disord. 2002. 31: 1-16
Cressman, Samantha. "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show puts body image in the spotlight." Daily Collegian. (2012)
