The Evolution of Women's Self Image

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According to scholars from University of Central Florida, Kristen E. Van Vonderen, and William Kinnally, claim that 44% of women who are average or underweight think that they are overweight. This number is significant enough to say that poor body image and low self-esteem are prevalent issues among women today. The average woman sees about 400 to 600 advertisements per day (Van Vonderen, Kinnally 43). However, what effect do these advertisements have on self-image of young women? I will explain many perspectives that demonstrate why woman internalize the thin ideal promoted by advertisements such as social comparison theory, cultivation, resonance and self-schema theory. These perspectives help explain why women translate media images into their perceptions as well as why some women are more vulnerable than others. I will explain how advertisements including television, magazines, and other sources have affected the attitudes and self-esteems of adolescent girls and women today. If the media continues to create unrealistic images of women to the general public, body dissatisfaction will only continue to become a problem.
Two writers for the Academic Psychiatry Journal, Derenne and Bersin claim that society has always placed pressures on women to have the ideal body type, but with television, magazines, and movies today the pressure is far more than ever before. Throughout history women have always gone to extreme measures to attain the standard of female beauty beginning with the corset in the 19th century. The image of the “ideal woman” has changed drastically over the decades. For example, in the middle ages a plump, voluptuous female body was considered highly attractive, as it symbolized wealth and fertility. Later, in the...

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...ssue: Body Image and Eating
Disorders, pp. 9-42.
“Peers, not TV, Influence Girls’ Body Issues: Study.” LiveScience. Tech Media Network, 30 January 2013. Web. 19 April 2014.
Ridolfi, Danielle, et al. "Do Appearance Focused Cognitive Distortions Moderate The
Relationship Between Social Comparisons To Peers And Media Images And Body Image
Disturbance?." Sex Roles 65.7/8 (2011): 491-505. LGBT Life with Full Text. Web. 6
May 2014.
Serdar, Kasey L. “Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard” Westminister. n.p. n.d. 13 April 2014.
Van Vonderen, Kristen E., and William Kinnally. "Media Effects On Body Image: Examining
Media Exposure In The Broader Context Of Internal And Other Social Factors."
American Communication Journal 14.2 (2012): 41-57. Communication & Mass Media
Complete. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.

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