The absolute beauty

The ideals of beauty vs. Consumerism — A proposed construct and test

Unrealistic ideals for beauty have been an adamant subject for years. Just recently, Target released a swimsuit advertisement with a very poorly photoshopped model. (The arm length, in particular, was seriously questionable.) People have been questioning advertisement and propaganda for years, asserting that they were a clear cause behind eating disorders and low self-esteem. (Indeed, many studies have found that propaganda and advertisement of women, in particular, with unrealistic bodies have contributed to psychological problems, such as eating disorders.) However, advertising chains have yet to make the conversion from excessively thin supermodels to normal healthy ideals for men and women. One speculation for the lack of change is that advertising companies fear the modification would lead to a loss of profits. While they currently hold (perhaps too much) power over consumerism and dictating the ideals of beauty, by changing their claim of what is and isn’t attractive, these companies would not only be relinquishing power to the population, they would also express the ideal that anyone could be attractive, whether or not they bought their product.

But is that really the case?

I would be very interested in performing a test on the body ideals of men and women, and whether modification of these ideals were tied to consumerism. Scenario-based surveys (with what-if scenarios) could be administered as tests to participants of a wide range of age groups in order to determine whether or not changing their beliefs of what is and is not an ideal body (ie switching from very thin to simply healthy) would modify their amount of consumeristic purchases, provided models remained geared to the ideals of beauty (thin models for individuals who believe it to be the ideal body; healthy normal-weight models for individuals who believe healthy to be beautiful). Such a test would help advertisement companies determine whether or not they would lose profit by switching unrealistically thin models with healthy individuals. My hypothesis would be that consumerism would follow as it always has. Advertisement companies need not worry about loss of profits, though they really should consider the moral highroad and ethical conundrum behind the imposition of “absolute (yet unrealistic) beauty”.

http://mhstrail.org/news/2014/03/20/target-promotes-body-shaming/