Sweeping analysis of research reinforces strong media influence on women's body image

The results are troubling because recent research has established body dissatisfaction as a major risk factor for low self-esteem, depression, obesity, and eating disorders, such as bulimia. At the same time, women’s displeasure with their bodies has become so common that it’s now considered normal, says Grabe. She hopes that wider recognition of the media’s role will encourage people to see the issue as a societal one, rather than as a problem of individual women as it’s viewed now.

“I think we need to consider how we’re using media images as a culture to share the values we think are important, and the effect that has on our well-being, ” she says.

The approach Grabe and Hyde took in their study, called meta-analysis, offers a way to quantitatively examine an entire body of research at once. In their case, this meant 77 carefully selected studies of the effects of appearance-focused media images on women’s body dissatisfaction, investment in their looks, adoption of the thin ideal, and eating behaviors and beliefs. The analysis also included controlled, experimental studies, in which these effects were tested directly, and investigations that correlated body concerns with women’s self-reported consumption of media.

In simple terms, the meta-analysis placed test subjects from every study into two groups: those who were exposed to media images portraying women’s bodies and the thin ideal, and those who weren’t. It then asked whether differences existed between the two and the magnitude of the differences.

In the end, the researchers did find a significant difference, with women who were exposed to media reporting less satisfaction with their bodies. Notably, this difference was also seen across all four measures of body image concerns.

So, what’s the answer" The French government may try to control the media, but don’t women also need to learn to be a little less concerned with their looks"

Grabe replies that the issue lies not with our attraction to images of beauty or with women’s desire to emulate them, but with what we’ve come to define as beautiful: bodies that are unnaturally and unhealthily thin.

“I want to stress that it’s totally normal for women to want to be attractive,” says Grabe. “But what’s happening in our society is that many women are striving toward something that’s not very realistic or obtainable, and that leads to a lot of health consequences.”

The study’s other author is L. Monique Ward of University of Michigan. The work was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Grabe.