Fashion And Advertising: Body Anxiety And Eating Disorders

Samantha Geffert

Professor Easlick

PS 112

12/8/2014

Photoshop in Fashion and Advertising

Introduction

The fashion industry is known for being controversial, sexualized, and for having exaggerated perceptions of beauty through visual means and through the use of photomanipulation. The resulting aesthetic is unattainable to everyday women, and this unattainability is crucial for the fashion industry to thrive. However, the resulting expectations and anxieties created in everyday women make some believe that significantly photoshopped images and advertisements should be labeled or banned. The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which media, specifically photoshop in fashion and advertising, plays a role in the development of body anxiety and eating disorders. It will look at a number of studies that evaluate the short and long term effects the media has on self perception and eating behaviors, each study listed going from least to most credible, based on the quality of the sample. It will review studies conducted on both sides of the issue to rationally decide whether or not body anxiety and eating disorders can be credited to media

This negative influence has been tested in a study conducted by Anne E. Becker, PhD, who assessed the results of prolonged exposure to television on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors among Fijian adolescent girls. The findings of the study were:

1. Following exposure of of television, key indicators of disordered eating were significantly more prevalent in Fiji's adolescent girls

2. There was data supporting subjects' interest in weight loss as a means of modeling themselves after television characters Therefore, there is a negative impact of television upon disordered eating attitudes and behaviors in a media-naive