The Effects of Media on Body Image and Body Dissatisfaction

The current study looked to find out whether there were higher numbers of unrealistic adverts in relation to body image in the media than realistic. Also, whether or not there were a higher number of unrealistic adverts in female media in relation to body image than in male media. This was carried out by looking at a number of adverts in different male and female health magazines and scoring the amount of unrealistic or realistic adverts found. The results found that there was no significant difference between the amounts of unrealistic/ realistic adverts on body image in the female magazines compared to the male magazines.

On the other hand, the results showed a significant difference between the amount of unrealistic images shown in the magazines compared to the amount of realistic images. . These findings suggest that the media does portray a lot more unrealistic images which could be a main cause of body dissatisfaction. However, the fact that it is more common to assume women have more issues with body dissatisfaction and that unrealistic images of females are portrayed more in the media seems to be incorrect. The media is such a large part of our environment. We are exposed to media everywhere we go.

A lot more of the media is starting to focus on body image, and what the ‘perfect’ body image is. This could obviously be having a major effect on people and change what they perceive to be the ‘perfect’ figure. It could also cause a lot of discomfort and a have a negative impact for the people being exposed to this media as in most cases the people exposed to this media will not have this unrealistic body image portrayed to be the norm. This could lead to serious consequences for people, a major consequence being either depression or an eating disorder.

It is believed eating disorders have the highest death rate of any illness. As many as one woman in 20 will have worrying eating habits; most will be aged 14 to 25 years old. According to one of the leading sites which deals with mental health problems called [1] Furthermore, a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders stated that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within ten years of contracting the disease, 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover.

The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of all causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old. Finally 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems, [2] These statistics alone give an insight of how serious eating disorders are and how they can affect people’s lives. Therefore, if the media is having an effect on what people perceive to be the ‘perfect physique’ then this could be one of the main catalyst causing people to strive to have this desired physique and cause them to become ill.

One reason why the media could be to blame for these statistics could be because of ‘the mere exposure theory. ’ This theory claims that the more exposure we have to a stimulus, then the more we like it. This can be for any type of stimulus, such as people, animals, food etc. For example, when you first try a certain type of food you may not like it, but if you keep eating that food, your perception of this food starts to change into a positive one. The only problem with this is that after too much exposure the opposite can happen.

It can become irritating for us and cause a negative perception towards the stimulus. For example if you eat too much of a certain type of food then you can start to dislike it. A lot of research has been conducted looking into the effects of media and negative feelings towards peoples own body image. One study was carried out looking at the effects of mere exposure theory. This study evaluated reward based and exposure based intervention for increasing children’s liking of unfamiliar vegetables.

Participants were assigned to one or two groups – exposure or reward, or a no treatment group for two weeks. The liking and the consumption of red peppers was assessed before and after the experiment. The results showed that the mere exposure based group significantly increased both liking and consumption in contrast to the control group. Therefore suggesting that the mere exposure theory can cause a person to like a certain stimuli more after repeated exposure. 3] Another study looked at the effects of media images on television and the effects it has on female’s perception of their body image. In this study, the participants were asked how many hours of television they watched a day, then how many of these programmes were ones with characters in that have ‘perfect’ physiques, such as 90210 etc. then the bmi of each participant was taken and was compared with how much television they watched and how much of this television contained media of body images. The results in this study suggested that the media did have an mpact on body dissatisfaction. Adolescent girls based their ideal body images on characters on the television that have the ‘perfect skinny’ body image. When the participants questioned their body image after the exposure, it made them feel worse about themselves and strive to have the ‘perfect’ body image. [4] There also seems to be a lot more media in relation to the ‘perfect’ female body image compared to the male body image. Also, a lot more females seem to be known for having eating disorders in the media than males.

One study showed the differences between male and female body dissatisfaction and media. The participants viewed television commercials containing either images of the ‘thin stereotypical body image’ for women and the ‘muscular body’ for men, or non-appearance television commercials. The participant’s body dissatisfaction was measured before and after the commercials. The results suggested that the short term effects directly after being exposed to body image in the media was a lot higher for females than males, however males were still affected by it to a degree.

The results showed that that media affected body dissatisfaction in both males and females, straight after being exposed to media. However, females where effected a lot more after exposure and had a lower body dissatisfaction than males, suggesting gender and the media with body image must also play a role. [5] Another study conducted looked specifically at the effects of media and body image with males. It was based on heterosexual and homosexual men. In the study, participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire that addressed eating disorders, drive for social physique anxiety and muscularity.

They were also asked about their consumption of muscle and fitness magazines and pornography. The results showed a positive correlation between body dissatisfaction and the consumption of health and fitness magazines and pornography, for both heterosexual and homosexual males. [6] This previous research led the researchers to conduct an experiment on body image and the media. All the studies seem to suggest there must be a link between exposure to media and body dissatisfaction.

The aims of the study where to find out whether the media did portray a large number of ‘unrealistic’ images or whether actually, there is not as many as previous research would suggest. The media and the news seem to portray a lot more exaggeration on the amount of ‘unrealistic’ female body images in the media such as size zero models etc. and a lot more women are spoken about in relation to eating disorders. Therefore the study also investigated whether or not there was a significantly larger amount of ‘unrealistic’ images in women’s media than in men’s media.

The experiment consisted of female health magazines and male health magazines. Then the adverts in these magazines were rated ‘neutral’, ‘unrealistic’ or ‘realistic’. In the aim to explore whether there was a larger amount of unrealistic images portrayed in these magazines than realistic which would suggest that the media does portray body image in an ‘unrealistic’ light which would cause the people viewing the media body dissatisfaction and cause them to strive for this nearly impossible ‘perfect’ body.

Or whether there was actually not a larger amount of ‘unrealistic images used in the media compared to realistic which would suggest that media does not have such a major effect of body image and body dissatisfaction. It was believed that there would obviously be a lot more ‘unrealistic’ images in these magazines than ‘realistic’ Therefore showing that media in relation to body image does have a major effect on people’s lives and is causing people to become obsessed with this unrealistic body image.

It was also believed that there would be a much higher amount of ‘unrealistic’ female images in these health and fitness magazines than in the male’s magazines. This would suggest that this is why there is a lot more attention drawn to women wanting the ‘perfect’ body image, also why there is more emphasis on women with eating disorders compared to males. Method Design The experiment conducted was a mixed study design. The comparison between men’s and women’s fitness magazines was in between as they were two completely different categories.

However, the analysis of realistic and unrealistic body images in both sets of magazines was within, as the same things were used. Therefore the study is both within and between (mixed. ) The variable that was measured in the study was the number of times unrealistic and realistic images where found in the magazine adverts. The factors that were manipulated were the different gender magazines used and the body image types (realistic/ unrealistic. ) The study was a 2 x 2 test. (Male and female, unrealistic and realistic) Participants

The participants in our study where the top 8 bestselling female health magazine and the top 8 bestselling male health magazines. The magazines were all October issues of the magazines. No consent was needed for the experiment. Materials There were 18 health magazines used in total, the first fifty adverts were used in each magazine. The internet was used to find out the top ten selling male and female health magazines. Procedure The group started off by completing a pilot – study in order to make sure our recording techniques would be effective on a larger scale.

The pilot-study consisted of six magazines in total, three female health magazines, and three male health magazines. [See appendix 1] The first twenty adverts in each magazine were rated unrealistic, realistic or neutral. After conducting an inter-observer reliability test [see appendix 1], it was found that we all coded similar for each category. It was agreed that in the main study there was no reason to record neutral as it would not benefit the study. The study was conducted between 5 researchers. Each researcher looked at three male fitness magazines and three female magazines accept one person looked at four.

The researchers had to choose three top selling male and female fitness magazines (see raw data for how many magazines were used), and then rate the first 50 adverts either unrealistic or realistic; if the advert was not related to body image then nothing was recorded. The results were recorded separately and there was no specific conditions the researcher had to rate the adverts under. There was no time limit on the experiment for any psychological reason, the only time limit was a week as the group were due to meet up, but this was for no psychological reasoning which would affect the study.

Results Once the first fifty adverts in the magazines had been but into one of the three conditions for all the magazines, they were then entered into a table of raw data (see appendix 2) the raw data was then analysed to show the descriptive statistic showed below. Table 1: Mean scores and standard deviations of the mean frequencies for the amount of unrealistic and realistic adverts in both male and female magazines. | Gender| Mean| Std. dev. | Unrealistic| Males| 16| 3. 21| | Female| 16. 38| 3. 11| | Total| 16. 19| 3. 06| realistic| Male| 12| 2. 27| Female| 14. 25| 2. 25| | total| 13. 13| 2. 47| Table 1 shows that the mean scores unrealistic images were near enough identical for male and females. The mean scores for the realistic images were also very similar for males and females. The total mean for unrealistic images was higher than the total mean for realistic images. The standard deviations for both categories and gender were all quite low, the highest being 3. 21. This suggests that each male magazine had quite a similar amount of unrealistic and realistic images in and each female magazine also did.

After completing the descriptive analysis the data was then used to find out whether there were any significant differences between realistic and unrealistic images, also whether there was a significant difference between males and females. The researchers used SPSS to analyse the results. (This can all be found in appendix 3) A mixed – subjects factorial anova was used to analyse the data. The total amount of realistic adverts and unrealistic adverts in the magazines in general where compared using a mixed – subjects factorial anova.

This revealed a significant difference between the amounts of unrealistic images used compared to the amount of realistic images used. [F (1,14) = 7. 64, p<0. 05, eta2 = 0. 35] The mean shown in table one indicated that unrealistic images occurred more in the magazines than realistic images. The total amount of realistic and unrealistic images in the male magazines compared with the female magazines where compared using a mixed – subjects factorial anova. This revealed a non – significant difference between the amount of unrealistic and realistic images used in male magazines compared with female magazines. f (1,14) = 0. 72, p = 0. 412, eta2 = 0. 049] the mean frequencies shown in table 1 indicate that there was not much difference between the levels of unrealistic and realistic images in the females magazines compared with the males magazines. Discussion The aims of this study where to analyse whether there was a higher amount of unrealistic body images in the media compared to realistic images, as a lot of previous research suggested if this was the case then this could cause many problems for the ‘average’, person, such as body dissatisfaction, which could lead to eating disorders.

The study also wanted to investigate whether there was a higher amount of unrealistic images in the media in relation to female body image than males, as there seems to be a larger amount of emphasis put on women striving to be the ‘perfect skinny’ ideal, and women are a lot more exposed for having eating disorders than males in the media. The results for the study showed that there were more unrealistic images in the magazines compared to realistic images.

The study in the introduction on mere exposure theory and the liking of red peppers suggested that mere exposure can cause a person to like and admire something after being exposed to it so many times. If this is correct, then our study would suggest that the exposure to these large amounts of unrealistic images in the media would cause people to aim and like this body image, therefore causing them to be upset when they do not look like the images. The other part of the results from our study showed that there was no significant difference found between the amount of unrealistic and realistic female images in comparison with male images.

It was predicted that there would be a significant difference as there seems to be a lot more emphasis put on women’s body dissatisfaction. Also previous studies, such as the study referred to in the introduction showing the differences between male and female body dissatisfaction and media, found that women had higher body dissatisfaction than males after being exposed to this type of media. This could suggest that women are effected more negatively by this type of media, not because they are exposed to more of these ‘unrealistic’ body images but for another factor such as genetics etc.

There were a few methodological issues with this study. One main problem that could have affected the results was defining ‘unrealistic’ and ‘realistic’. What the researchers may have deemed ‘unrealistic’ or ‘realistic’ might not fit with the definition of what other people would class as these. To try and overcome this an inter –obeserver reaiability test was carried out, however this was still only valid for the five researchers and the rest of the population might have a different view on what is perceived as ‘unrealistic’ and ‘realistic’.

Furthermore, researcher bias could have also played a large role in the study; the hypothesis predicted there would be more ‘unrealistic’ images than ‘realistic’. The researchers were obviously looking for more unrealistic images, therefore the researchers might have been more inclined to say an image was unrealistic when actually just because a person does not look overweight or completely out of shape does not mean it is an unrealistic image even though the researchers might have been bias to rating this that way.

Finally, the magazines used in the study were all health magazines, it is more than likely in health magazines the images are going to have very healthy, in shape people. What the researchers deemed ‘unrealistic’ probably would not be for the people who actually be these magazines The results would suggest that if exposure to ‘unrealistic’ images in the media causes people to have body discomfort and feel ‘negative towards themselves, then obviously the data supports the idea that the amount of media out there with ‘unrealistic’ images could cause this as there was a lot more of these in the magazines.

Research in this area could progress by finding out if there is certain ages that are effected more, as previous research suggests its adolescents, so therefore if we can find this out, the more chance we have of helping people stop these negative attitudes when it will affect them the most. Research could also be conducted on how different parts of the world and different ethnic origins are affected to this type of media, to find out if there are certain cultures that seem to have higher amounts of this media.

One major question which arises from the study is the fact that previous research, mentioned in the introduction, suggested females were affected more than males by media on body image. However, this study found no significant difference between genders. Therefore, there must be another factor that causes females to become more affected than males by body image in the media. This could be done by analysing different social influences for women and men, apart from media, such as family, environment etc. to see if there is any significant difference between the genders.

Also, this study only looked at health magazine adverts; this is only a small part of the media, and is generalized to healthy people. Therefore, a study carried out on the media in general or characters in programmes may be more beneficial as it may show clearer results which can be generalized to eh population and media in general. The findings of our study could have a major impact in the real world. A lot of past research suggests that exposure to unrealistic body images in the media can cause body discomfort and negative feelings.

Lowering this amount of unrealistic body image media, and bannning size zero models etc. , could stop peoples body dissatisfaction being so low, leading to less people becoming victims of eating disorders or depression, which could actually lead to saving people’s lives. From our study, it can be concluded that there is a lot more unrealistic body imagery in the media than there is realistic suggesting that this could cause body dissatisfaction and cause people to be aiming to actually over exaggerate the importance of being ‘healthy’.

However, there seems to be no difference between the amounts of female unrealistic images compared with male unrealistic images. So, if previous research stating women are more affected by unrealistic body imagery in the media is correct, then there must be a biological reason or another factor causing women to be affected on a higher level References [1] mind. 2011. [online] [accessed 3rd November 2011] available from world wide web: <http://www. mind. org. k/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/eating_distress> [2] South Carolina Department of Mental Health. 2006. [Online] [accessed 3rd November 2011] available from world wide web: < http://www. state. sc. us/dmh/anorexia/statistics. htm> [3] Wardle, j. , Herrera, M-l. , Cooke, L. , Gibson, EL. , (2003) ‘Modifying children’s food preferences: the effects of exposure and reward on acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable. ’ European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 57, pp. 41-348 [4] botta, RA. , (2006), Television Images and Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Disturbance. Journal of communication, vol. 49, pp 22 – 41. [5] Hargreaves, DA. , (2004) Idealized media images and adolescent body image: “comparing” boys and girls. Body Image, vol 1, pp 351-361 [6] Duggan, SJ. , MCcreary, DR. , (2004)) body image, eating disorders, and the drive for muscularity in gay and heterosexual men: the influence of media images. Journal of homosexuality, vol. 47, pp. 45 – 58.