Measuring the Impact of Media on Body Image

Do you experience a feeling of dissatisfaction every time you look yourself in the mirror? Do you feel fat when you watch Victoria’s Secret fashion show? Do you feel puny or weak when you watch Magic Mike? Do you often repeat to yourself “I will start a diet tomorrow” or “I will go to the gym tomorrow?” Do you wonder why you do not look like the “perfect” models on the cover of magazines? If you answered yes to most of these questions, do not worry, you are part of the majority!

Body dissatisfaction is a big problem of our society and it affects people of all ages. Body dissatisfaction is the perception of one’s body, or one’s body parts, as imperfect (Urban Dictionary, 1999). For the past few years, the thin-ideal became very popular, and many people tried, and are still trying to reach this ideal in order to have a ‘’perfect body.’’ Many studies have shown that media was the main cause of body dissatisfaction, and that it had negative effects on the way people perceived their bodies (Brown & Dittmar, 2005).

After reading many books, articles, magazines and blogs, I decided to build my own questionnaire in order to see if media really influenced the way we perceived our bodies. I administered the questionnaire to 30 people from my entourage (15 girls and 15 boys, from 18 to 25 years old). My questionnaire included images of men and women with different body types, a rating scale in which the participants had to evaluate and rate the images, and questions regarding their exposure to media. I hypothesized that if media had a negative impact on body image, then the participants will choose more images portraying bodies close the ideal (e.g., muscular, thin, tall, etc.).

After administering the test and analyzing the data, my hypothesis was confirmed. The results showed that people who spent few hours watching television, and reading journals or magazines, were more satisfied with their bodies than those who were highly exposed to these resources. However, women appeared to be less satisfied with their bodies than men, no matter their exposure to media. Tiggemann and Polivy (2010) found in their research on the impact of media on women, that women were more negatively affected by the media and the thin-ideal than men.

The test had many limitations mainly that the participants were not randomly selected, the conditions were not standardized, and the sample was not large enough. Yet, even with these limitations, we can detect a major problem of our society; the impact of media on the perception of our bodies. Personally, I find that the way we perceive our bodies has an impact on our well being. This is why I would like to ask you the following question:
We can easily measure anxiety, depression, happiness, narcissism, neuroticism, life satisfaction, and self-esteem, but do you think that when measuring them we should include questions assessing the influence of media?

260633437

References
Brown, A., & Dittmar, H. (2005). Think “thin”and feel bad: the role of appearance schema activation,attention level,and thin-ideal internalization for young women`s responses to ultra-thin media ideals. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 24(8), 1088–1113.

Tiggemann, M., & Polivy, J. (2010). Upward and downward: social comparison processing of thin media images. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34(3), 356–364.