Eating Disorders 7

Eating Disorders
In the 1950’s the ideal image was Marilyn Monroe’s curvaceous body (Halliwell 44). Today stick skinny women are the prominent look for role models. These role models set a bad example and can tear down young women’s self esteem and make an unrealistic body ideal image. However this trend of skinny models always being on the cover of magazines and in every advertisement is questioned whether it really does or does not affect women’s views. Many young women idolize these models and eventually form unhealthy eating disorders to acquire the skinny ideal body image. Unrealistic media images are affecting woman’s body image and is causing woman to take on harmful and unhealthy eating disorders.
Models in magazines, television, and advertising are unrealistically skinny. Why do products choose this thin look? Advertisers defend that this unhealthy and unattainable ideal that “thinness sells” (Dittmar 123.) In Consumer Culture Gillian defends his thoughts on the issue;
Statistics have repeatedly shown that if you stick a beautiful skinny girl on the cover of a magazine you sell more copies… Agencies would say that we supply the women the advertisers, our clients, want. The clients would say that they are selling a product and responding to consumer demand. At the end of the day, it is a business and the fact is that these models sell the products. (Dittmar 123)
Dittmar also adds that, “Although the impact of model attractiveness is partly dependent on the product advertised, research supports the notion that highly attractive models are more effective than normally attractive models at selling-appearance[related] products.” (Dittmar 124).
This ideal isn’t representative of real women or even the models. Covers of magazines are always edited and changed to fit the ideal image. Thompson and Heinberg point out that;
Historically, figures of art were romanticized as otherworldly and unattainable. In contrast, print and electronic media messages blur...