Today advertisements are pervasive in every aspect of our lives and can be found everywhere such as in billboards at roads we use, in the literature we read, in the television we watch, and in the social media platforms we use to interact with friends. The pervasiveness of advertisements demonstrates their significant role in daily life. Some of the messages in these advertisements concerning beauty targeting young women are unrealistic and harmful. People are mostly exposed to these unrealistic adverts while still young, which means that the messages influence their entire lives. It is, nevertheless, important to understand that no one understands the meaning of an ideal body image.
Advertisements usually contain unrealistic images of ideal bodies. Opinions regarding the idea of thin body images as the ideal bodies as depicted in advertisements differ. Advertisements, however, significantly influence our lives and even if we do not know how many advertisements we are exposed to every day, studies estimate that one individual is exposed to nearly 10,000 advertisements each day (Simpson, 2017). The number may appear to be very large but it is real given the different types of media that people are exposed to today. A majority of the advertisements targeting women depicts messages about exercise, beauty, or health. Such messages can positively influence the lives of women by teaching them appropriate techniques to care for themselves. Most of the advertisements, however, depict unrealistic messages that tell women about ideal body types through depicting thin models who do not reflect the average body type of a woman in society. Before examining the influence of advertising on eating disorders, it is vital to discuss the issue of eating disorders.
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The main eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa. People with Anorexia suffer from inaccurate body images where they consider themselves to be overweight even though they are thin. Most patients do not eat properly, engage in regular exercises, and engage in uncommon behaviors such as starving, losing weight excessively, and not eating when others are around (Meule et al., 2019). Anorexia usually concerns the inner doubts of women, their lack of competence, control, respect, and self-esteem (Meule et al., 2019). The psychological imbalance that emerges causes extreme habits such as restrictive dieting or starvation to develop a specific body image or feel to be in control of the body.
Another disorder, Bulimia, is manifested with excessive eating followed by purging of the food and calories through exercising, vomiting, or through diuretics, enemas, or laxatives. Patients normally act in secret and feel ashamed and disgusted when binge eating. They relieve negative feelings and tension once they purge the food (Meule et al., 2019). Obsessive-compulsive and anxiety-related issues are the main causes of eating disorders. Other eating disorders include the unspecified eating disorders that also affect women. People suffering from unspecified disorder experience eating issues that do not meet the criteria of bulimia or anorexia (Meule et al., 2019). Patients, however, still harbor disordered thoughts regarding calorie consumption and their bodies. They are afraid of gaining weight and develop unhealthy obsessions.
The differences between disordered eating and eating disorders are vital concerning this study because it supports the argument that advertisements significantly affect the overall anxieties and concerns related to the body image. The current study considers advertisements to be the cultural factors that affect the consideration of a thin body as the ideal body image among women. In turn, this predisposes victims to specific psychological imbalances, which causes eating disorders. While the different eating disorders have different causes, they both lead to dissatisfaction with one’s body image and are both affected by what victims see around them. Habits such as using laxatives and restrictive dieting are culturally induced as they emerge due to different external forces such as the persistent advertisements depicting the ideal body as thin.
The emphasis on the thin body image is so pervasive today (Latzer et al., 2015). A typical model today is about 20 percent underweight, which is the anorexia category (Dittmar et al., 2009). The wide gap between the real and ideal bodies causes many females to develop eating disorders. Studies show that about 20 million women will suffer from an eating disorder at some time in their lives (Latzer et al., 2015). The issues of being dissatisfied with the body are especially problematic among young women aged 18 years to 25 years.
High body dissatisfaction and negative body image contribute to the development of eating disorders (Latzer et al., 2015). Body image refers to both the subjective views of the body encompassing emotional attitudes toward the body and conceptual views of the body (Rumsey & Harcourt, 2014). The main features include body characteristics, shape, and size. Unrealistic body images today encourage women to engage in eating disorders to fit a specific body ideal represented in advertisements. People who are dissatisfied with their bodies tend to be discontent with the size and shape of their appearance and body and experience negative esteem and thoughts regarding their body (Dittmar et al., 2009). Most people are dissatisfied with their bodies because they judge it by looking at ideal body sizes or shapes and their perceived body size or shape (Rumsey & Harcourt, 2014). Body dissatisfaction is prevalent today among women that most of them consider it normal to feel dissatisfied with their bodies. The high occurrence of body dissatisfaction causes women to suffer from health issues including eating disorders (Dittmar et al., 2009). The problem affects young women in early adulthood because women in this age group are attempting to establish their identities (Rumsey & Harcourt, 2014). These women have to deal with the issue of negative body image and changes in self-esteem concerning their physical appearance. They also commonly experience disordered thoughts, which increase their vulnerability to the adverse effects of advertisements on body image.
Advertisements contribute to shaping beauty ideals by depicting specific body sizes as desirable and beautiful (Rumsey & Harcourt, 2014). They perpetuate images using different channels, which can easily establish the cultural norms for appearance in society. Women today can sign into their social media platforms such as Instagram and look at images of models or sign into Pinterest to search for diet and exercise tips. They can also read stories from TMZ about celebrities who have gained weight. These channels constantly remind women of the body shape they must strive for, the required diet for such body types, and the required exercise.
A closer look at advertisements today reveals that they often send strong messages that the most desirable bodies are the thin ones. Most beauty products and diets are advertised, particularly to women, as a way to achieve that ideal body size or shape. The millions of dollars spent in advertisements lead to a regular bombardment of messages and images that discourage people from being content with their physical appearances and encourage them to transform their looks. This messaging affects people by influencing the development of harmful habits that eventually lead to eating disorders. While research shows that eating disorders can also be genetically caused, the existing socio-cultural context including advertisements contributes to the emergence and maintenance of eating disorders (Sharan & Sundar, 2015).
Dittmar et al. (2009) also include a complex aspect to the thin body ideal in a study regarding the effect of thin medial models on the body image of women. Based on the study, a wide gap between the physical appearance of medial models and average women exists and can affect the perception of women about their bodies in relation to the bodies of the models that vary significantly from the average woman. The gap is increasing each year, which causes women to internalize the ultra-thin ideal to be their objective and become dissatisfied with their bodies. Women then focus on their body images with this personal objective in their mind, which affects their mental functioning and develop unhealthy behaviors to shape their bodies to have the thin ideal body.
The recent proliferation of images on the internet or “thinspiration” also contributes to the development of eating disorders. A study by Jett et al. (2010) found that people who view these images end up suffering from low self-esteem and reduce their calorie intake. Other studies have also found that adolescent girls who frequently read fashion magazines have higher chances of dieting to lose weight due to an article (Field et al., 1999). Images in magazines influence the idea of young girls of the ideal body size, which causes them to want to lose weight to develop the ideal body shape. The high concern levels regarding dieting, weight, and a craving to appear like celebrities or models all indicate a greater risk for eating disorders (Pedersen et al., 2018). The idea of a thin ideal is a term that describes a specific type of body that women consider to be the ideal shape. Models in advertisements depict underweight, unhealthy, and unrealistic body shapes that do not compare to the real body size. Advertisements constantly expose women to these unreal body images, which causes some people to believe that they must lead a specific life to develop the thin ideal body. In turn, this leads to the development of eating disorders.
Women also develop low-confidence and unrealistic views of the ideal body to which they can compare themselves due to advertisements. Based on the literature, advertising can lead to adverse effects on the self-image of women, which can further lead to detrimental effects such as eating disorders. Even though not all women are influenced by advertisements, the current study aims to test the hypothesis that eating disorders are caused by the sustained and high prevalence of advertisements depicting the ideal body as excessively thin.
Methods
Measures
The objective of the current study is to test the hypothesis that sustained and high prevalence of advertisements depicting the ideal body type as excessively thin cause young women to develop eating disorders. The independent variable in the study is the exposure to advertisements depicting societal thin body ideals. The dependent variable concerns the symptoms and characteristics of eating disorders. The study will use the eating attitudes test (EAT-26) to measure the variables. The test has 26 items and will be used as the standard self-report scale for the symptoms of eating disorders (Garner et al., 1982). It also has a 6-point frequency measure that rate statements to determine the level of concern regarding dieting and body weight. Those who score above 20 will have a high level of concern, which will indicate a higher risk of developing an eating disorder.
Population
The study focuses on young women aged 18-25 years old and who are constantly exposed to different advertisements. 120 participants will be involved in which the study will seek volunteers from the local higher education institutions. The sample will include women aged 18 to 25 years where the mean age will be in the early 20s. The selection of the sample will include participants with diverse socio-economic and racial backgrounds.
Procedure
The research will be conducted in a laboratory where the researcher will give the participants questionnaires before experimenting. The questionnaire will have questions on demography such as age, ethnicity, and class year and questions related to their current exposure to advertisements in magazines (their favorite magazines and specific topics they like reading about). The survey will include 10 questions to measure the vulnerabilities to be influenced through advertisements and develop the advert influence score (AI score).
The researcher will then divide the participants into two groups with an equal number of participants with high advert influence (5 and above) and low advert influence (below 5). The first group will be exposed to five advertisements in magazines that portray various body types. The first advertisement will depict a thin model suffering from anorexia; the second advertisement will depict an average model with a fit and healthy body, while the third advertisements will display an overweight model. The fourth advertisement will show a curvy model while the last advertisement will show a group of models with different body sizes that are not regarded to be ideal. The second group will be the control group that will also be shown animated advertisements featuring male bodies and non-human bodies. The participants will be required to select the body type that best reflects their body type and the idea of women of an ideal body type. Participants will then receive the EAT-26 test. The researcher will then obtain scores from each group and compare them to find any differences before computing P-values to identify statistical significance
Conclusion
The study expects the first group to get high EAT scores than the second groups, which will support the hypothesis that exposure to advertisements showing the ideal body as excessively thin increases concerns regarding body weight and image, which causes eating disorders. Confirmation of the findings of the study will prove that messaging and images in advertisements can be very detrimental to young people, particularly if the advertisements depict unrealistic things. The study findings would assist stakeholders including psychologists, parents, and marketers to understand the impact of unrealistic advertisements on the attitudes and thoughts of young women. Understanding these effects can help to prevent the issues of eating disorders and identification of direct causal connections between advertisement messaging and images and self-perception to determine the reasons that young women internalize specific features and if there is a need to scrutinize advertisements to benefit the entire society.
References
Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E., & Stirling, E. (2009). Understanding the Impact of Thin Media Models on Women’s Body-Focused Affect: The Roles of Thin-Ideal Internalization and Weight-Related Self-Discrepancy Activation in Experimental Exposure Effects. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 28 (1), 43–72. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2009.28.1.43
Field, A. E., Cheung, L., Wolf, A. M., Herzog, D. B., Gortmaker, S. L., & Colditz, G. A. (1999). Exposure to the mass media and weight concerns among girls. Pediatrics , 103 (3), E36. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.103.3.e36
Garner, D. M., Olmsted, M. P., Bohr, Y., & Garfinkel, P. E. (1982). The Eating Attitudes Test: psychometric features and clinical correlates. Psychological Medicine , 12 (4), 871–878. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291700049163
Jett, S., LaPorte, D. J., & Wanchisn, J. (2010). Impact of exposure to pro-eating disorder websites on eating behaviour in college women. European Eating Disorders Review , 18 (5), 410–416. https://doi.org/10.1002/erv.1009
Latzer, Y., Spivak-Lavi, Z., & Katz, R. (2015). Disordered eating and media exposure among adolescent girls: the role of parental involvement and sense of empowerment. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth , 20 (3), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2015.1014925
Meule, A., Richard, A., Schnepper, R., Reichenberger, J., Georgii, C., Naab, S., Voderholzer, U., & Blechert, J. (2019). Emotion regulation and emotional eating in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Eating Disorders , 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10640266.2019.1642036
Pedersen, L., Hicks, R. E., & Rosenrauch, S. (2018). Sociocultural pressure as a mediator of eating disorder symptoms in a non-clinical Australian sample. Cogent Psychology , 5 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2018.1523347
Rumsey, N., & Harcourt, D. (2014). The Oxford handbook of the psychology of appearance . Oxford University Press.
Sharan, P., & Sundar, As. (2015). Eating disorders in women. Indian Journal of Psychiatry , 57 (6), 286. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.161493
Simpson, J. (2017, August 25). Finding Brand Success In The Digital World . Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/08/25/finding-brand-success-in- the-digital-world/?sh=28e8cdac626e
