Beginning at a young age, women are subjected to an unrealistic idea of what beauty is supposed to be. Advertisements, magazines, movies and billboards display female role models promoting unobtainable body images.
The current media’s ideal thinness is realistically achievable by few females. The pressure to obtain a body type that comports with the media’s image causes women to resort to extreme measures such as diet pills, anorexia and bulimia.
The first advertisement thrown on young girls is the Barbie fashion doll — a tall, thin, blonde haired, blue-eyed beauty icon. However, it is important to keep in mind how unrealistic Barbie’s body image is.
According to Huffington Post, if Barbie were life-sized, she would stand at 5 feet 9 inches and weigh 110 pounds. Her BMI would be 16.24, classifying her as anorexic. Additionally, her body proportions would be so out of whack that she would likely have to crawl on all fours to get around.
As young girls mature into teenagers, their interest in Barbie subsides and they adopt adolescent role models, such as women posing in Victoria’s Secret advertisements or in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
The pressure teens go through to keep up with the media’s ideal image is emotionally exhausting. Teenage girls are exposed to many advertisements focused on body image that they consciously — not just subconsciously — become more aware of how far they are from achieving the media’s degree of thinness.
Eating disorders — the result of distorted body images — cause stomach problems, heart problems, kidney problems, dental problems, dry and scaly skin, dehydration and irregular periods. They are also extremely psychologically damaging.
According to dosomething.org, the average model weighed 8 percent less than the average women 20 years ago, but today’s model weighs 23 percent less. Today, the average American woman stands at 5 feet 4 inches and weighs approximately 140 pounds, while the average American model stands at 5 feet 11 inches and weighs only 117 pounds.
There is, however, a small bright spot. In 2004, Dove launched its campaign, “Real Beauty.”
This campaign features real women — not models — advertising Dove’s products. These are real idols, whom women can look up to without having to resort to destructive eating disorders, which do lifetime damage.
Dove emphasizes that real beauty is not just thin-deep.
The Real Beauty campaign is hopefully a glimpse into the future of how the media will portray beauty.
The media needs to look to examples such as Dove portrays into what future ad campaigns should represent.