Effects of Advertisements on Women Body Image and Gender Roles

Body Image and Gender Roles

“Monteath and McCabe found that nearly 44 percent of women express negative feelings about their bodies (as a whole and in terms of individual body parts). Also, in a 1997 survey, 56 percent of female and 40 percent of male respondents reported being dissatisfied with their overall appearance” (Davis & Davis, 2009).

Body Image
Davis and Davis (2009) mentioned that the exposure to pictures of exaggerated perfect figures of a female body has been associated with a loss of self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders. A recent survey by Teen People Magazine showed that “27% of the girls felt the media pressures them to have a perfect body”. Another survey, done in 1996 by the International Ad Agency Saatchi and Saatchi, discovered ads made women feel they are not attractive or old. Researchers said advertising media negatively affects a woman’s body image, which causes women to have unhealthy behavior by encouraging them to make every effort to have the perfect thin body shown in the media (Body Image and Advertising, 2008).

Eating Disorder
“Women frequently compare their bodies to those they see around them, and researchers have found that exposure to idealized body images lowers women's satisfaction with their own attractiveness. One study found that people who were shown slides of thin models had lower self-evaluations than people who had seen average and oversized models” (Body Image and Advertising, 2008). Girls stated in a body image survey that “very thin models made them feel insecure about themselves.” Also, in a sample of Stanford undergraduate and graduate students, “68% felt worse about their own appearance after looking through women's online magazines.” A lot of health professionals are worried about the popularity of idealized body image among women, which will lead women to compare their body to those in the media. “Seventy-five percent of "normal" weight women think they are overweight and 90% of women overestimate their body size” (Body Image and Advertising, 2008).
According to Body Image and Advertising, the exposure of the huge amount of online ads of thin models makes women and even young girls worry about every pound they gain. “Over 80 percent of 10-year-old girls have dieted, and currently, 50 percent of women are presently dieting in America” (Body Image and Advertising, 2008). Consequently, women are developing eating disorders and “millions are suffering from illnesses like anorexia or bulimia”. These women are affected by the ads that convey “a perfect life of 90 pound models” (Konrad, 2008). In addition to that, studies discovered that “a third of American women in their teens and twenties begin smoking cigarettes in order to help control their appetite” (Body Image and Advertising, 2008).