The Media and Body Image

If Looks Could Kill

Maggie Wykes, Barrie Gunter

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781446229132
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Blaming the media for reproducing and extolling unrealistic female bodies has almost become a popular truism. Even medical opinion notes that the media can influence young women to starve themselves and therefore act as a possible causal factor of disordered eating.

Yet surprisingly, little work has addressed either the nature of media representations of the body, or the ways in which audiences interpret and use such images in our contemporary cultural context.

The Media and Body Image addresses this lack and:

-Draws together literature from sociology, gender studies and psychology

-Brings together new empirical work on both media representations and audience responses

-Offers a broad discussion of this topic in the context of socio-cultural change, gender politics, and self-identity.

1	Could Looks Kill?

Despite normal hunger, slender shape and a successful social life, many young women deprive themselves of nutrition to the extent that they risk serious illness and even death. Epidemiological research has indicated that women’s preoccupation with food and body shape is widespread, while the incidence of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia is on the increase. In the United States, a survey of over 2,500 schoolgirls aged between 13 and 18 found that more than three-quarters said they wanted to lose weight and two-thirds had dieted in the past year to lose weight (Whitaker et al., 1989). Even more poignantly, 8 per cent of this sample reported that they had vomited during the past year to lose weight, 2 per cent had used diuretics and 17 per cent, diet pills. The researchers concluded that between 0.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent of their sample could be considered as anorexic. In another American survey, it was reported that 20 per cent of young college females had claimed to self-starve (Pyle et al., 1990). Eating disorders can include anorexic or bulimic behaviour; the first involves the rejection of food and the second purging after eating.

Long-term studies have indicated a 20 per cent mortality rate after 30 years (Theander, 1985), and anorexia is very much like committing slow suicide. In the UK, recent research on 37,500 schoolchildren found 60 per cent of 14- and 15-year-olds felt overweight even though they were actually average and below weight. Dr Regis of Exeter’s Health Education Unit commented that ‘more effort was needed to stop teenage girls becoming obsessed with trying to emulate waif-like models’ (Daily Mail, 27 October 1998).

The likelihood is that diagnosed eating disorders may only be the visible tip of a contemporary obsession with body shape that engenders addictive and/or destructive behaviours as a means of weight and shape control. Smoking, drug use, over-exercise, cosmetic surgery (Wolf, 1992) and self-harm may well also be part of the profound subjective dissatisfaction with their body image that is evident and prevalent among, young women in particular. Extreme weight control tactics are not unknown amongst young men but it has long been established that it is women who tend to exhibit more dissatisfaction with their bodies (Heunemann et al., 1966).

Body obsession has historical precedents, particularly in relation to religious ascetism and associated fasting (Bordo, 1993), but is arguably both different from earlier examples and more pervasive than ever before in contemporary Western culture (Counihan, 1999). The modernity of the apparent expansion of ‘fasting’ and its focus on the body rather than on the soul appears to parallel the explosion of the mass media over the past 40 years. Consequently, causal or probable relationships between media representations and body image have been regularly, theoretically posed since Orbach (1978), who briefly noted the tendency for the media to produce a picture of ideal femininity as ‘thin, free of unwanted hair, deodorised, perfumed and clothed … They produce a picture that is far removed from the reality of everyday lives’ (1978: 20–21).

Body shape ideals

Anorexia and bulimia are behavioural syndromes. Body image is a psychological construct. While they represent distinct phenomena, however, they are frequently closely interrelated. In fact, body image concerns and a preoccupation with dieting among teenagers often emerge together (Byely et al., 2000). The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability (Cash and Szymanski, 1995; Thompson, 1990).

Clinical statistics based on medical treatment rates can be referred to in relation to anorexia and bulimia. Normative statistics of body image disturbance, however, are less easy to find. Most of the research on body image perceptions has been conducted with college student samples that are not representative of the general population. Such studies have been primarily concerned with investigating the antecedents of body image dissatisfaction rather than with establishing its national prevalence. In the United States, attempts have been made to produce statistics beyond college samples to indicate how widespread a problem negative body image might be.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the magazine Psychology Today conducted large-scale surveys of body image among adult men and women aged 18 to 70 years (Berscheid et al., 1973; Cash et al., 1986). A further nationwide US survey was conducted among adult women only (18–70 years) in the early 1990s (Cash and Henry, 1995). These surveys indicated that both men’s and women’s body image perceptions have become more negative over time (Cash and Henry, 1995; Cash et al., 1986). In 1985, three in ten (30%) American women said that they were unhappy with their overall physical appearance, a figure that increased to nearly one in two (48%) by 1993 (Cash and Henry, 1995).

In the UK, much of the evidence about the prevalence of body image satisfaction or dissatisfaction has derived from readership surveys run by glossy magazines. One survey conducted in 2000 by Top Santé was reported in a national daily newspaper as having found that half of a sample of 5,000 women with an average age of 37 years classified themselves as overweight. More than eight in ten (83%) said that they felt inhibited by their body and that their life would be considerably improved if they were happy with their body (Stevenson, 2000).

The same magazine conducted a further survey in 2001, and on this occasion 3,000 women with an average age of 38 replied. Once again, the great majority (85%) were unhappy with their shape and nine in ten (90%) said that their appearance depressed them. There was further evidence that women think a lot about their bodies. Whatever their size, over seven in ten (73%) reportedly thought about their size and shape every day and eight in ten (80%) felt that their lives would be considerably enhanced if they felt totally happy with their body (Daily Mail, 9 August 2001). The central concern of women as revealed by these surveys was that they felt they were too big. In the 2001 survey, the average respondent claimed she had tried to diet at least six times, with more than eight in ten (86%) saying they had dieted at some point, and around three in ten saying they had fasted (32%), displayed bulimic tendencies (31%) or anorexic tendencies (28%).

Yet not all the evidence from these surveys has been consistent. A survey of 3,000 women aged between 18 and 40 who were interviewed on behalf of Garnier cosmetics in Britain, the United States and Australia reportedly found that most said they thought about their bodies a lot. While many dreamed of improved physical attributes such as a flatter stomach (46%), firmer buttocks (20%) and shapelier legs (14%), when asked to name a celebrity whom they most admired for her body shape, the most popular choices (Kylie Minogue, 23%; Catherine Zeta-Jones, 15%; Jennifer Lopez, 12%) were preferred because of their shapely figures rather than for their slenderness (Lockett, 2002).

Locating a source of blame

Blaming the media for reproducing and extolling representations of unrealistic female bodies that influence young women to starve themselves has almost become a popular truism. Just as the mass media have been frequently accused of causing perceived increases in sexual and violent crime so they are now subject to a barrage of criticism for persuading young girls that thin is beautiful. Even medical opinion notes the media as a possible causal factor. Crisp argued that anorexia ‘meets the psychosocial concerns of the person concerned’ (1992: 5). He highlighted two major socio-cultural developments as contributing to its relative contemporary prevalence: the fundamentally altered nature of sexual relationships and mass media and communication.

Contemporaneously, within psychology, a growing volume of research since the 1960s has explored body image perception. The importance of the subject has stemmed, to a significant degree, from the association of certain idealized body images with disordered eating habits, the increased prevalence of which in some societies is recognized as a major health problem (Streigel-Moore et al., 1986). The core of body image dissatisfaction has been located within a discrepancy between the perceived self and ideal self. The ideal self-image may be considered as either an ‘internal ideal’ or a ‘societal ideal’ resulting from the dictates of the surrounding cultural and societal environment as to what constitutes the perfect body. Perceived-ideal discrepancies that cause dissatisfaction in relation to aspects of the body that are regarded as malleable, such as weight and the distribution of fat, are believed often to provoke attempts to narrow this discrepancy through such methods as dieting and exercise (Silverstein et al., 1988).

Explorations of eating disorders and related body shape perceptions have indicated that there are biological, psychological, social and cultural factors linked to symptoms of disordered eating. Any number of these factors may individually or collectively set the stage for the development of disordered eating (White, 1992). While such symptoms can occur among a wide variety of people (men as well as women), most of the research attention has centred on their more commonplace occurrence among young women (see Dolan, 1989; Schwartz et al., 1982; Stoutjesdyk and Jevne, 1993).

The appearance of body image dissatisfaction has been observed to emerge among young girls at the very beginning of their teenage years. Certainly, 13-year-olds have been found to report concerns with their body size and appearance that are in turn linked to lowered self-esteem. However, girls as young as 11 years have been found to exhibit similar perceptions in those cases of early arrival of puberty (Williams and Currie, 2000).

The emergence of body image concerns is important because it is frequently associated with the appearance of disordered eating patterns too. This is worrying when it occurs in the early teen years that are important physical growth years. The more dissatisfied young girls are with their bodies, the more likely it is that they will under-eat at this vital period of physical development (Griffiths and McCabe, 2000). Both parents and peer groups play a significant role in relation to onset of body image disturbance and disordered eating. Any suggestion of a concern on the part of a parent with their own body or the display of dieting on their part can create a psychological climate in which such behaviours are encouraged in impressionable teenagers (Vincent and McCabe, 2000).

Gender and body image

In academic and wider public discussions about media and body image, most of the attention is focused on the impact that media representations of body shape have upon women. This emphasis often disguises the fact that men, too, are increasingly defined by their bodies. According to Henwood, Gill and McLean (2002: 183), ‘Patterns of consumption, lifestyle choices and media representations of men now often focus upon men’s appearance and the male body. … Media advertising routinely depicts in positive ways youthful toned muscular male bodies or focuses on style in men’s clothing and physical appearance’. What effects do these representations have?

Some writers have argued that media images can present ideals in terms of physique for men just as much as for women (Henwood et al., 1999). There is a need to consider the extent to which men’s bodies are treated as commodities or objects to be gazed upon in the same way as had previously been claimed about the representation of women’s bodies. The nature of any media impact in the realm of masculinity, however, must take into account the typical benchmark self-perception for men. While research has shown that women tend to regard themselves as bigger than they really are, for men the opposite is true. Men tend to perceive themselves as underweight and as thinner than they actually are and report a desire to be larger (Harmatz et al., 1985; Miller et al., 1980; Mintz and Betz, 1986). Men also overestimate both women’s and other men’s preferences for a large, muscular physique for men (Cohn and Adler, 1992).

As with women, society’s view of men may have been shaped and reinforced by media images. The use and display of men in advertising could have served as a particularly potent social conditioning force in this context. It is pertinent to ask whether a muscular, toned, fit and hard-bodied ideal is being promulgated in respect of men in the same way as a thinness ideal is being projected for women. In comparing themselves to such an ideal, how are men affected? Does it leave them feeling anxious and less confident or less secure about themselves (Mort, 1988; Nixon, 1996)?

It has been suggested that men seek to embrace physical strength, hardness and power to reinforce the traditional masculine ideal – and at the same time to distinguish itself from ideas about femininity. The female form is traditionally conceived as soft and rounded, while the masculine form, in contrast, is taut and lean. The male preoccupation with abdominal stomach muscles in the face of a decline in physical labour and increased girth, embodies an attempt to hold on to this traditional masculine ideal of muscular strength and condition (Baker, 1997; Henwood et al., 2002).

Body image studies among men have begun to demonstrate that men can display as much dissatisfaction with their bodies as do women. Furthermore, this finding has occurred in a number of different countries. One study of college-age men in Austria, France and the United States found that, across all three countries, young men chose an ideal body shape that was considerably heavier and more muscular than the shape they judged they currently had. They also believed that women preferred a male body that was heavier and more muscular (Pope et al., 2000). With women, lower body self-esteem and higher body dissatisfaction have been found to motivate a drive for thinness. A comparable drive for muscularity has been hypothesized to occur among men who are unhappy with their body image. Boys and young men who are dissatisfied with their current body shape have been found to display a drive to put on weight in the form of more muscle (McCreary and Sasse, 2000). Anecdotally, this tendency has been linked with male magazines’ emphasis on muscular physiques for men (and the ‘six-pack’ stomach) which, in turn, is believed to have created a climate in which young men are encouraged to take drugs such as anabolic steroids to achieve the body they want. Abuse of such drugs can lead to serious health problems, including impotence, heart disease, cancer and violent mood swings (Chapman, 2000).

Given changes in gendered roles and the growing socio-cultural emphasis on looks and grooming, it may well be that men feature more and more frequently with poor body image, low self-esteem and consequent self-harming or mental health problems but there is no doubt that currently it is overwhelmingly a problem of and for young women. So this book focuses first and foremost on femininity and the representation of female bodies. It also focuses on Western cultures, particularly the United States and Britain, where eating disorders appear to be pandemic. We again acknowledge, however, that this may well not be a static situation and the future may see a more universal incidence of self-starvation.

Cultural standards of beauty

In Western societies especially, a general preference for a thin body shape has become established as the norm. Culturally, however, this is not yet a universal phenomenon, nor indeed has it been consistent even within Western nations. Many societies have associated a plump physique for women with attractiveness and in some cultures obesity has been admired (Ford and Beach, 1952; Rudofsky, 1972). For over 30 years in Western societies, however, young females have reported more positive attitudes towards a small body size and thin physique, with the exception that a well-developed bust is often preferred (Calden et al., 1959; Nylander, 1971).

Large-scale surveys have produced consistent evidence that the desire to lose weight is prevalent among many national populations, especially among women (Button et al., 1997; Davis and Katzman, 1997; Serdula et al., 1993; Streigel-Moore et al., 1996). However, the positive connotations of a slender body shape occur very frequently in Western cultures. A thin body shape is associated with success personally, professionally and socially (Bruch, 1978). At the same time, food – perceived as a cause of loss of thinness – can take on a negative hue for many women (Chernin, 1983; Orbach, 1978). The pleasures of food represent a temptation that must be brought under control through rigid and restrictive eating patterns for the greater good of attaining some socially sanctioned beauty ideal.

Despite the early observations of cross-cultural differences in body shape ideals, evidence has begun to emerge that Western-style concerns about body shape occur in non-Western populations, particularly among individuals who have had frequent contact with Western people and their culture. One study of young white and Asian women living in London and young Asian women living in Lahore in Pakistan who were English-speaking found similar associations between body dissatisfaction and attitudes to eating throughout all three groups. All the women who participated were recruited from slimming and fitness gyms in both cities. The youngest women in each case exhibited the greatest body image dissatisfaction (Bardwell and Choudry, 2000). A further study conducted among young women in South Africa found that eating disorders linked to body self-esteem were prevalent across black, white and Asian women (Wassenaar et al., 2000).

Other research has confirmed that similarities in judgements about physical appearance and attractiveness can occur across cultural groups, but some subtle differences also prevail. An American study presented figure drawings to Caucasian, African American and Hispanic college students who were asked to choose figures that most closely matched their current body shape, the body shape they would most like to have, the shape they felt would be found most attractive by the opposite sex, and the opposite-sex figures they found most attractive. Dissatisfaction with body shape was greatest among women regardless of ethnicity. However, both men and women misjudged which shapes the opposite sex would rate as most attractive. The women guessed that the men preferred shapes thinner than those they actually reported. African American women, however, had the most accurate views about what men would fi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Could Looks Kill?
• Part One Media Representations
• Part Two From Media Representations to Audience Impact
• References
• Index