Exposure to Media Images of Female Attractiveness and Concern with Body Weight Among Young Women1

Abstract

Despite the popular belief that the thinstandard of female attractiveness currently presented inthe media is a primary contributor to the high level ofconcern with body weight among women, experimental studies have not shown that exposure to mediaimages increases women's weight concern. Threeexperiments are reported demonstrating that exposure tomedia images does often result in increased weightconcern among women, but that body dissatisfaction, astable personality characteristic, is a moderator ofvulnerability to this effect. Although most womenreported higher weight concern when exposed to media vs. neutral images, women with low initial bodydissatisfaction did not. In addition, this researchsuggests that negative effects on weight concern mayresult from even passive exposure to media images, but that exposure to realistic attractivenessis less likely to cause increased weight concern. Theethnicity of the participants in these studies reflectedthat of the local population, with over 90% white. The nonwhite participants primarily belonged toone of the following groups; Asian, Pacific Islander,Latino.