Fashion Magazines and Body Image
Research indicates that exposure to thin ideal images in women's magazines is associated with heightened concerns for body shape and size in a number of young women, although the media's role in the psychopathology of body image disturbance is generally believed to be mediated by personality and socio-cultural factors. The purpose of this research study is to know and gather solid facts and reasons about fashion magazines affecting the teenagers’ body image in a form of research to self evaluation through careful accumulation of acceptable data and relevant resources for such data to be precise and spontaneous in its respected details to support results.
Few studies have explored mediating processes through which media exposure and use contribute to development and perpetuation of eating-disordered cognitions. The other purpose of this study was to test a structural equation model that incorporates several mediating processes through which women's beauty, fashion, health, and fitness magazines might influence the fear of being fat. This study complements previous models by exploring the potential direct and indirect effects of two additional mediating influences: "hope" and the internalized belief that men expect women to be thin.
Theoretical Background
The emergence of the slender body type as a beauty standard for women is especially salient in the mass media, and several researchers have demonstrated how the female body depicted in the media has become increasingly thin (Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Ogletree, Williams, Raffeld, Mason, & Fricke, 1990; Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson, & Kelly, 1986; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens...
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... Humor," 1015.
Jakobsson et al., "Establishing a Swedish Instrument," 136.
Snyder et al., "The Will and the Ways," 581-83; Westburg, "Hope and Humor," 1015.
Louis. A. Gottschalk, "Hope and Other Deterrents to Illness," America Journal of Psychotherapy 39 (October 1985): 515-25; Scioli et al., "A Prospective Study of Hope," 729-33; Snyder et al., "The Will and the Ways," 581-83.
Judith Fitzgerald Miller, "Hope," American Journal of Nursing (January/February 1985): 23.
Scioli et al., "A Prospective Study of Hope," 724-25.
Jokes Hermes, Reading Women's Magazines (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1995), 29-65.
McCracken, Decoding Women's Magazines: From Mademoiselle to Ms. (NY: St. Martin Press), 135-72.
M. Ferguson, Forever Feminine: Women's Magazines and the Cult of Femininity (London: Heinemann); McCracken, Decoding Women's
Before men’s magazines become a part of popular culture this realm was dedicated to the female consumer, but in 1933 Esquire set out to change that stereotype. Kenon Breazeale’s purpose in writing ‘In Spire of Women’ is to make people understand that men’s magazines, specifically Esquire promote a sexualized image of women solely for a man’s satisfaction. In doing so Brezeale argues that Esquire contributed to the growth of the male consumer by making women an object of the male fetish that serves as only an annoyance to society. Breazeale is able to argue that Esquire is a rejection to the power of femininity by explaining how Esquire adapts to a consumer-based culture where it emphasizes the difference between masculinity and femininity
Media is a wide term that covers many information sources including, television, movies, advertisement, books, magazines, and the internet. It is from this wide variety of information that women receive cues about how they should look. The accepted body shape and has been an issue affecting the population probably since the invention of mirrors but the invention of mass media spread it even further. Advertisements have been a particularly potent media influence on women’s body image, which is the subjective idea of one's own physical appearance established by observation and by noting the reactions of others. In the case of media, it acts as a super peer that reflects the ideals of a whole society. Think of all the corsets, girdles, cosmetics, hair straighteners, hair curlers, weight gain pills, and diet pills that have been marketed over the years. The attack on the female form is a marketing technique for certain industries. According to Sharlene Nag...
It is human nature to curiously decipher what makes us different. Early scientists often had created tests to divide us by race. The tests often would contradict the
In the past, races were identified by the imposition of discrete boundaries upon continuous and often discordant biological variation. The concept of race is therefore a historical construct and not one that provides either valid classification or an explanatory process. Popular everyday awareness of race is transmitted from generation to generation through cultural learning. Attributing race to an individual or a population amounts to applying a social and cultural label that lacks scientific consensus and supporting data. While anthropologists continue to study how and why humans vary biologically, it is apparent that human populations differ from one another much less than do populations in other species because we use our cultural, rather than our physical differences to aid us in adapting to various environments.
This variation has no substantial ties to skin color, but does show genetic variation from different geographical locations in the world. These variations are not categorized in groups of what people call race, but rather ethnicity. Ethnicity, defined by Stephen Cornell, is a sense of common ancestry based on cultural attachments, past linguistic heritage, religious affiliations, claimed kinship, or some physical traits. Race, as most people catoragize it, encompuses many ethnicitys. Ethnicities are local populations, this makes sense that they would tend to have less genetic variation compared to each other then the rest of the world as they would share genetic adaptations resulting from the environment they live in. This can include skin color, but can also
Advertisers use women that are abnormally thin, and even airbrush them to make them appear thinner. These advertisers promote a body image that is completely unrealistic and impossible to achieve (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006b). It has been instilled in these advertisers’ minds that a thinner model will sell more (Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2003). Media has a direc...
Jeffrey M. Fish’s article “Mixed Blood” gives evidence to race as a social construct rather than a biological entity. The first piece of evidence that insists that race is not biological is the fact that human are a single species. Despite having physical differences, all humans are able to mate with “others… and produce fertile offspring” (Fish 250). This evidence indicates the humans are more biological similar than we let on. Despite many beliefs that humans are separated by physical characteristic, through scientific evidence it is clear that we are one species. While many people point out that certain characteristics are shared by certain groups of people it is important to note that these differences are evolutionary characteristics that allowed our ancestors to survive in varied conditions (Fish 250). A common example of this is the differences in skin color of people indigenous to different parts of the world. A person with roots in Scandanavia, a cold area, is likely to have much lighter skill than a person whose ancestors were from an equatorial African nation. Fish also introduces the psychological factor of people of a particular race believing their race to have more variation. This is an interesting concept because it is heard throughout pop culture and daily life. This article explains the occurrence as being an environmen...
During the 18 century, people divided humans based on where they live and skin color like Europeans as “white”, Africans as “black”, Indians as “red”, and Asians as “yellow”. For example, in Haiti, color has been the dominant force in social and political life. Skin texture, facial feature, hair color, and socioeconomic class together play a role in placement. The anthropological perspective define race as members of a society have similar biological traits. These members are diverse from other members of society because of these traits. In the end, the race concept is not acceptable to humans but it is used as a cultural classification. ...
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
People from various parts of the world have different features that can be used to identify where they originate. The question of whether or not human races truly exist is now a prevalent one in the scientific community. Some scientists believe that race is biologically meaningless while others believe that race can be used to determine medical treatment for a person (Jorde & Wooding, 2004). Although there are genes that determine the different physical characteristics of people their genetic variation is mainly due their geographic location. There is some biological basis for the phenotypic differences in humans, but the way we define and understand these differences are flawed. There is no individual trait or gene that separates members of one race from all the members of another race (Brace & Gill, 2000).
The media is a fascinating tool; it can deliver entertainment, self-help, intellectual knowledge, information, and a variety of other positive influences; however, despite its advances for the good of our society is has a particular blemish in its physique that targets young women. This blemish is seen in the unrealistic body images that it presents, and the inconsiderate method of delivery that forces its audience into interest and attendance. Women are bombarded with messages from every media source to change their bodies, buy specific products and redefine their opinion of beauty to the point where it becomes not only a psychological disease, but a physical one as well.
Biological advancements such as Darwinism and Mendelian genetics had a profound impact on the study of race in the scientific community. These new concepts eventually led some scientists to question the validity of traditional notions about race. The resulting debates continue even today. The idea of race, especially in citizens of this country, evokes strong feelings because of the enormous social implications associated with racial identity. The social connotations of racial categories have had a profound influence on the way scientists understand human variation. Early ideas of race were colored by these connotations, and they still play a critical role in the way we understand race today. This paper will explore, with an emphasis on historical context, the current debates over whether to continue to inlude race in scientific, and especially medical, studies.
Broadly speaking, race is seen or is assumed to be a biologically driven set of boundaries that group and categorize people according to phenotypical similarities (e.g. skin color) (Pinderhughes, 1989; Root, 1998). The categorical classification of race can be traced back to the 16th century Linnaen system of human “races” where each race was believed to be of a distinct type or subspecies that included separate gene pools (Omi & Winant, 1994; Spickard, 1992; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Race in the U.S. initially began as a general categorizing term, interchangeable with such terms as “type” or “species”. Over time, race began to morph into a term specifically referring to groups of people living in North America (i.e. European “Whites”, Native American “Indians”, and African “Negroes”). Race represented a new way to illustrate human difference as well as a way to socially structure society (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
Derenne, J. L., & Beresin, E. V. (2006). Body image, media, and eating disorders. Academic Psychiatry, 30(3), 257-261.
THESIS: Scientists and other intellectuals recognize the modern concept of "race" as an artificial category that developed over the past five centuries due to encounters with non-European people. Even though people still attempt to organize humans into categories according to their race, these categories have been shown to have no scientific basis.