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Press Clippings and Media Coverage
The Kate Moss effect
October 31, 2002
Women, you know that crummy feeling you get after leafing through a fashion
magazine chock full of models who, let's face it, look way better than you?
It's not all in your head, a new study says.
One minute to body dissatisfaction
Researchers found that women who looked at advertisements featuring
stereotypically thin and beautiful women showed more signs of depression and
were more dissatisfied with their bodies after only one to three minutes of
viewing the pictures. The women who registered the biggest drop in
self-image after viewing the pictures were those who already felt bad about
themselves to begin with, said Laurie Mintz, lead author of the study and an
associate professor of educational and counselling psychology at University
of Missouri-Columbia. "It's like a vicious cycle for a lot of women," Mintz
said. "Basically, women who already feel ashamed of themselves are the
people who are going to be most impacted by those images."
Testing body satisfaction
Researchers divided 91 Caucasian women ages 18 to 31 into two groups. The
first group was shown advertisements for underwear, nail polish, jewellery,
lotion, chewing gum, and liquor that featured rail-thin, seemingly flawless
women. The other group of women was shown ads for the same types of products
without people in them. Mintz and graduate student Emily Borchers then used
three well-accepted tests to measure psychological changes after viewing the
images, including depression, self esteem, and body satisfaction. The body
satisfaction test, called the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, is
designed to assess to what degree women see themselves as an object, how
ashamed they are that their body does not measure up to cultural ideas, and
how much they believe they're responsible for their body not meeting the
cultural standards. One portion of the questionnaire asks women to rate, on
a scale of one to five, their happiness with 35 body parts, including their
nose, lips, waist, thighs, overall weight, and body hair.
Dissatisfaction and depression swing upwards
Researchers found that after looking at the pictures of the beautiful models
for one to three minutes, the women's body dissatisfaction increased
significantly. Depression levels registered a slight up swing, while
self-esteem was unchanged. "What is really, really striking to me is that it
took such a short time," Mintz said. The study has not yet been published.
Joan Chrisler, a professor of psychology at Connecticut College, said she's
not surprised by the findings. "There have been several studies that have
shown after women look at fashion magazine their body satisfaction and their
feelings about themselves decrease," Chrisler said. Live in the real world
So what's a woman to do? Avoid reading fashion or celebrity-gossip type
magazines, Chrisler said. Of course, it's hard to avoid billboards,
television, and all the other places these images are shown. But try to
remember images are not realistic. Forget airbrushing. Models in today's ads
can have portions of their bodies digitally altered to erase even the most
minute mole, bulge, or asymmetry. Some "models" depicted in ads aren't real
people at all, but composites, Chrisler said.
Distinction between fantasy and reality blurred by media
Today's mass media is blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, making
it seem as if "perfection" is attainable with the right diet, the right
beauty products, the right plastic surgeon, Mintz said. For the vast
majority of women, this of course isn't the case. "Within current mass media
messages, the distinction between reality and a fictionalised ideal are
often unclear," Mintz said. "Unlike art, literature and music, which are
usually in the context of something unattainable, the images that that
individuals are constantly exposed to through the mass media are perceived
as realistic, and thus, seem to set cultural standards."
Had enough of Barbie ideal?
In the study, Mintz cited previous research that asked adolescent girls what
the ideal woman looked like. The girls said she's 1.7m tall, weighs 45kg, is
a size 5, and is blonde and blue-eyed. "What we need is for young women to
stand up and say, 'I've had it. Enough!'" Chrisler said. Define your
standards for beauty, Chrisler suggested. "It's only the ideal if you
accept it as the ideal, and you don't have to. You can ask yourself: 'What
does beauty mean to me?' You can decide beauty is a range or something
internal or a sparkle in the eye." (HealthScout News)
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