The article is written by Mary-Signe Chojnacki, Christina Grant, Kathryn Maguire and Katie Regan called Depleting Body Image. 

The article explores the effects that magazine models are having on the self-esteem of women, especially on college aged women. 

The article attempts to answer the following question:

To identify the specific effects that the magazine has on college-aged women's body image and self-esteem.

The article says that:

"Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media's idea of the "perfect" body." and "The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough"

The article then tries to prove this point by carrying out a survey to see how college-aged women are effected at their university.

"Overall, our study has concluded that magazine models do not influence womens body image of self-esteem"

Depleting Body Image:

The Effects of Female Magazine Models on the Self-esteem and Body Image of College-age Women

Influence of Magazines on College-Age Females’ Body Image

Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media’s idea of the “perfect” body. These unrealistic images are portrayed in women’s magazines all over the country. The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough. The average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Annually, magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Magazines sell body dissatisfaction to their readers through unrealistic images of women, as well as dieting and exercise information. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size, but today’s standard is much smaller. As the beauty ideal continues to get smaller in our society, body image within American women continues to plummet. Magazines portray and compare happiness with being thin; therefore some feel if they are not thin, then they are not happy. As with women of all ages, many college-age women are believed to hold unrealistic ideals of body shape and size, ideals that can be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.

Our study, focused on women who attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison that are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. We wanted to identify the specific effects that the magazine portrayal of the “perfect” body has on college-age women’s body image and self-esteem. We hypothesized that this portrayal contributes to women having negative body images and self-esteem due to the reinforcement of body shapes and sizes in magazines that are unrealistic for most women to attain. In our study we defined body image as the subjective concept of one’s physical appearance based on self-observation and the reaction of others. We defined self-esteem as the positive and negative evaluations people have of themselves. The purpose of this study was to test the influence of women’s health/fitness and beauty/fashion magazines on a woman’s perception of her body through several distinct methods.

The first method used to collect data was a survey administered to forty college-age women around the UW-Madison campus. The survey focused on body image, self-esteem and thoughts about magazines. The second method used was an observation, consisting of four groups of two college-age women who were asked to discuss their feelings and attitudes toward a fashion/beauty magazine and a health/fitness magazine. The third method conducted was in-depth interviews of four college-age women using extensive questions to gain additional information on whether college-age women are affected by the magazine industry’s culture of thinness. The fourth method was an experiment using twelve college-age women who were divided into three separate groups with each group being assigned one of three magazines: a health/fitness magazine, a beauty/fashion magazine or a news magazine. After reading the magazines, the women were given a survey very similar to the one used in method one. The four methods combined allowed us to address our hypothesis that college-age women have negative body images and self-esteem due to the culture of thinness which the magazine industry portrays to women. Several examples of prior research on this topic provided additional context for study.

Cusumano and Thompson (1997) examine the relative influences of media exposure, awareness of societal pressures regarding appearance and internalization of this socio-culture pressure on body image, eating disturbance and self-esteem in “Body Image and body shape ideals in magazines: Exposure, awareness and internalization.” The college-age women were surveyed through seven questionnaires for the type of magazines they read, along with the time spent reading each magazine. The overall body shapes and breast sizes that were promoted in these magazines were then identified and quantified. They found it was important to use the body and breast variables separately. Cusumano and Thompson also found a distinct lack of a relationship between exposure to body size ideals and measures of body satisfaction, eating disturbance, self-esteem and one’s own actual degree of obesity. Internalization of social norms of appearance accounted for significant and substantial variance, whereas exposure was not.

Thomsen’s (2002) study “Health and Beauty Magazine Reading and Body Shape concerns among a group of college women,” proposed testing a structural equation model which incorporates several mediating processes through which beauty/fashion, health/fitness magazines might influence the college-age female’s fear of being fat. He explores the potential direct and indirect effects of two additional mediating influences: “hope and the internalized belief that men expect women to be thin.” Three key findings emerge from this study. The first is women’s belief about men’s preferences or expectations for female thinness were the strongest predictor of body shape and size concerns. Although two types of magazines were studied, only health and fitness magazine readings were directly linked to body shape and size concerns. Finally, hope was not influenced by the reading, expected future weight gain and loss, and body shape and size concerns; this finding was not anticipated.

Turner, Hamilton, Jacobs, Angood and Dwyer’s (1997) study “The influence of fashion magazines on the body image satisfaction of college women: An exploratory analysis” is an experimental study with a sample of thirty-nine undergraduate women who were randomly assigned to two different treatments.  One treatment was to view a fashion magazine and the other to view a news magazine. After viewing was completed, both treatments took a body image survey.  The women assigned to the fashion magazine treatment indicated a lower self-image than the women assigned to the news magazine treatment. Although the two groups of women in the study did not differ significantly in height or weight, those who read fashion magazines prior to completing a body image satisfaction survey desired to weigh less and perceived themselves more negatively than did those who read news magazines. Exposure to fashion magazines was related to women’s greater preoccupation with being thin, dissatisfaction with their bodies, frustration about weight, and fear about deviating from the thin standard.

Rabak-Wagener, Eickhoff-Shemek, and Kelly-Vance (1998) studied the effects of unrealistic body shapes in magazines on college-age women in “The Effect of Media Analysis and Behaviors regarding Body Image Among College Students.” They also sought to discover whether or not a media analysis program helped young women change their attitudes and beliefs about body image. The fist method they used was a survey to measure respondents’ beliefs and behaviors regarding fashion-advertising images. After the survey, the large group was then split into a comparison and an intervention group. The intervention group participated in a 6.5-hour program analyzing, critiquing, and learning about the fashion industry and their methods of advertising. After the program both groups were surveyed again. On the pre-test there was no significant difference between the intervention and comparison groups. On the post-test, however, students in the intervention group reported significant changes in their perceptions of body image while the comparison group reported no significant changes. This study and its findings are important because they suggest that magazines do influence the way women feel about their bodies. The study is also somewhat encouraging because it suggests that media analysis can be a valuable tool in changing college-age women’s beliefs about the ideal body.

Marian Morry and Sandra Staska’s (2001) “Magazine exposure: internalization, self-objectification, eating attitudes and body satisfaction in male and female university students,” studies the relationship between magazines and people’s body image. The study emphasizes social and cultural pressure toward thinness in women through media portrayal of the ideal female body. The study used 150 university students, which were tested by giving them equal exposure to magazines, a questionnaire and interviews on their eating habits, recognition of socio-cultural attitudes, and body shape. The study’s main findings were that media exposure to the “ideal” form is being internalized. The exposure is related to problematic eating patterns, self-objectification and body shame.

Our hypothesis concerning the effects of magazines correlates with the results of the previous studies. Our goal was to prove that college-age women’s body image and self-esteem are negatively affected by the magazine industry’s portrayal of thinness. We began our data collection with a survey of forty college-age women around the UW-Madison campus.