Models: The Subconscious Ideal

As we flip through magazines, do you ever sit and wonder what kind of an effect it has on you?  There are fitness magazines and there are beauty/fashion magazines.  They certainly use different models, but both don't hesitate to photoshop.  For fitness magazines, they have been known to photoshop a more muscular look to an editorial model while beauty/fashion magazines photoshop wrinkles and general body appearance.

(I have no idea why they felt the need to Photoshop Jessica Alba.  I mean really....they don't even think SHE'S good enough as is!)

We all know that the magazines use Photoshop, that's no secret.  I think most women would agree that they wish they could photoshop themselves in real life every morning (in jest, of course).  A study that I recently read came to as perplexing answers as us women can be.

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~jpiliavi/357/body-image.htm

It's a long article, but in summary, they were researching whether fashion and/or fitness magazines have a negative impact on women's self esteem.  The results were so scattered that they couldn't come to any definitive answer.

That's no surprise to me.  The main contradiction that the study found was that while women will generally dismiss magazine models as "too thin" or "unhealthy," they will turn right around and say they consider a model to have the ideal body type.  Nearly every woman stated she would like to be thinner...and most of them were average size (5'4" & 140lbs.).  That is nearly exactly my size at a size 8, for reference.

So although we say that we don't like models and their size, we desire to be like them.  Why is that?

It is popular to be outspoken and individualistic.  By rebuking the typical model size as "gross,"a woman can socially maintain her "fierce, liberated, independent" woman ideal.  But when it comes down to it, we are uncontrollably influenced by the media proposed "ideal."  

Have you ever wondered how a woman could end up in a terribly abusive relationship?  How could she have gotten to this point?  Why doesn't she just leave?  It's not that simple by the time she's in full-fledge abuse.  Abuse doesn't happen in one session.  Abuse occurs over years of whittling down on the self-esteem and the individual's concept of reality.  

I consider women's relationship to the media a form of abuse.

We are abused on a nearly daily basis, and we don't even know it.  It's so socially acceptable.  We are told on a daily basis to ALWAYS be thinner.  Healthy doesn't even enter into the equation.  Health, in fact, is often sacrificed for the purpose of looking thinner.

STOP THE ABUSE.

Recognize it as abuse.  This particular study found that most of the women participating in the survey didn't have any direct correlation between their self-esteem and the desire to be thinner.  And yet, MOST of the women felt they NEEDED to be thinner.  The scientists can only say that the hypothesis was incorrect.  

I say, we're confused.  

Our confidence comes more easily in other areas about ourselves: our minds, our personalities, our general treatment of others.  But our one Achille's heel is our weight.  Our appearance.  I believe that since most generally speaking, women base their overall self esteem on more than physical, we believe we have a medium self-esteem.  Good for us!  But if we ALWAYS feel like we could be thinner, what does that say?

That we're not good enough.

And who gave us that impression?

Know what the good news is?  The study also found that women who DID have higher self-esteems were much more able to dismiss the pictures of models in magazines.  And women who participated in healthy eating and some form of exercise had a self-esteem that trumped the thoughts imposed by the magazines.  And what brings about good self-esteem? 

POSITIVE SELF TALK.

I can't repeat it enough.  Keep it up ladies.  Speak to yourself in positive ways every day.  Speak of others in positive ways.  Soon you'll be able to stand up to the abuse of the ideal media just like the sleazy guy at the bar desperately trying for your number for the night.  We're better than that.  And you better believe it.