Our cultural obsession with thinness earns the diet industry $100 billion/year. The media presents thinness as the epitome of beauty for all females, even though this standard of beauty is unattainable for most women. The prevalence of images of so called ‘attractive’ ultra thin women in the media leads to diminished body image and a lack of awareness regarding what constitutes a healthy weight. Although, there is an increasing trend in which the body image of young males being negatively affected by the media’s presentation of the ideal male body this article will focus on; thinness as the beauty standard for all women in our culture, how this standard affects the psychology and body image of females, and how to determine your own healthy weight.

The media in all its forms promotes thinness as the beauty ideal. Women’s magazines have 10.5X more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, over 75% of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s bodily appearance, and approximately 80% of the female characters featured on TV and in movies are underweight.

Audiences viewing these images absorb these ideals, and as a culture we label those who are larger as unattractive and unworthy. If you think back to your childhood I am sure you will remember that during your school days the overweight kids were often the last ones picked for teams, teased about their size and discussed as being less than worthy of their thin counterparts. This makes it obvious that cultural notions about physical size color our perceptions, our language, and the way we behave. This is especially true for females who attempt to adhere to the beauty standard, as illustrated by the statistics to follow. Read the rest of this entry »