Body Image Psychology

Mass media has evolved over the years and is heard to have many effects on body image. Does mass media have an effect on body image? To answer this question, I have explored academic articles for different social science disciplines. This particular discipline is Psychology. The discipline of psychology will show how body images affect people and what causes them to be affected. The articles being reviewed are Barlett, Christopher P., Christopher L. Vowels and Donald A. Saucier. “Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Media Images on Men’s Body Image Concerns.” Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology. 27.3 (2008) : 279-310., Hayes, Sharon and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. “Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on

young girls’ body image.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 28.2 (2010) : 413-426. And Halliwell, Emma, Alice Easun and Diana Harcourt. “Body dissatisfaction: Can a short media literacy message reduce negative media exposure effects amongst adolescent girls?” British Journal of Health Psychology. 16.2 (2011) : 396-403.
“Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Media Images on Men’s Body Image Concerns” by Christopher P., Christopher L.

Vowels and Donald A. Saucier explores how men may also be affected by mass media and body image. 2 studies were done to explore this research. The first study explored different literature about mass media and body image effects and whether they correlate. The study explored different articles from 1806-2005 by searching how the media affects men’s self esteem towards their body. There were 4,324 participants in these articles. The results of this study showed that mass media did have an effect on men’s body image and they did have a correlation. Study 2 explored literatures with experiments on how men’s body image was affected by mass media. The results showed the when men see photos of other men with big muscles they have a negative body satisfaction. This shows that many muscular images do have an affect on men and lowers their self-esteem. This article is relevant for my research because it shows how women are not the only ones whose self-esteem towards their body is affected by the media. Men are also affected. If I would change something about this article it would be to make their own experiment and not explore other

experiments.
“Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on young girls’ body image” by Hayes, Sharon and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn explores media exposure towards young girls and their body image. The research question is “Does media exposure effect body images of young girls?” To answer this question, 121 mother/daughters from pre-school and elementary school in the US. The ages ranged from 3-6 years old. First they were given a video of children films such as Cinderella and the Little Mermaid. These movies include princesses which some children would like to look like. After watching the video, the childrens behavior was measured. The children were also interviewed before watching the video and after. After the interview, the children were told to put a picture of their face on a computer onto a body in which they would like to have. The mother’s were then asked questions about their children. The results for behavioral changes showed that there was no difference. There was no effect on body dissatisfaction. The older girls were seen putting their faces on thinner bodies compared the younger girls. Younger girls had the results of being worried that they would be fat when they were older. When watching the princess movies, half of the children chose the skinniest princess to be the most real princess. Less than half of the girls wanted to change their physical appearance. This article is good for my research because it shows how younger girls are exposed to media and how they react or do not react to it. If I were to add/change something to this article I would of added a survey.
Body dissatisfaction: Can a short media literacy message reduce negative media exposure effects amongst adolescent girls?” by Halliwell, Emma, Alice Easun and Diana Harcourt explored how a video explaining how the media alters bodies and faces may change the opinions of body image effects on teenage girls.

To answer their research question, they used four experiments. Their sample was 127 girls between the ages of 10-13 who attended school in England. The video used for the intervention was a girl in a Dove commercial. The commercial shows how much is edited before publishing the image in a magazine or a billboard. They explored body dissatisfaction, body image, body satisfaction and body esteem. Some of the girls watched the video and some of them did not. This was to see the difference in reactions. There was a significant difference in people who watched the video versus the girls who did not. For the girls who did not watch the video, after they were exposed to thin models, their body satisfaction lowered. For the girls who did watch the video, their body satisfaction did not change. The same results were found for body esteem. The authors concluded with the results that the girls who did not watch the video of how the media edits and alters models bodies had a lower body esteem and dissatisfaction after looking at skinny models. This article is a great help for my research because it shows the results when people see skinny models without knowing the editing that goes

into these magazines, advertisements/billboards etc… I would not change anything about this article. I believe that it was a great article with a significant amount of information and great results.
To conclude, all of these articles are important for my research because there is a lot of information that will help my research project. There were also many experiments that were proven to have affects on people. This will help me answer my research question and have examples to prove it.