A look at the media and its influence on females in society

1. Tall, Thin, Beautiful &…Fake?
Lexi Westenskow
Googleimages.com

3. FLAWLESSNESS

5. LIES????
• The photos of almost every single celebrity
and model are photo-shopped before their
pictures are published and released.
• Skin blemishes are removed most
frequently, hips and thighs are made
smaller, and necks are elongated while breasts
are made bigger.

6. Ever read or skimmed a magazine like
one of these?

7. What’s the point?
Are you a part of the 70 percent of girls who
read magazines on a regular basis and use
them as a source for beauty and fitness
information?
Source: Thompson and Heinberg

8. It’s Everywhere!
• As females we see media images of models
and celebrities on a daily basis.
• Media is impossible to avoid.
• Media is included in television, music
videos, billboards, magazines, and even video
games.

9. The average supermodel?
• The “average” supermodel is hardly average.
• According to Glamour Magazine the average
American woman is 164 pounds and 5'4". That's
about 35 pounds heavier and six inches shorter
than the average supermodel.
• While models are abnormally thin to begin
with, the technique of photo shopping makes
them even more perfect in appearance.

10. We are constantly flooded with images
like this…

11. When most American women look like
this… And they’re still beautiful!

12. How do these women do it?…. Most of
them don’t.
• The more we use this editing, the higher the
bar goes. The media is creating things that are
physically impossible.

13. The Reality
• Henry Farid, a Dartmouth Professor, calls
photo shopping radical digital plastic surgery.
• We’re seeing bigger breasts, tinier
waists, longer legs, and wrinkles being
smoothed out.
• How could we possibly keep up with
that, when the models themselves don’t even
look that good?!

14. Fantasy vs. Reality
• On the left is the real photo of Faith Hill and
on the right is the photo after photo shopping.
• Notice how the wrinkles under her eyes
disappear and how much smaller her arm
looks.

15. Here’s another example…
• This model’s hips in the picture on the right
are smaller than her head which is actually
physically impossible. The photo on the left is
the real model.

16. And another…
• Notice how the photo of the model on the
right, which is the one that has been photo
shopped shows her hips and thighs much
smaller than the actual photo on the left.

17. How do these unrealistic images affect
our body image?
• "I think the perfect bodies we're seeing in
magazines that are photo-shopped have a
terrible effect on how women feel about their
own bodies," says Montana Miller, assistant
professor in the department of popular
culture at Bowling Green State University in
Ohio.

18. So what’s the problem?
• “These billions of images of women in media
far outnumber the females we could ever see
eye to eye, and that reinforces a distorted idea
of what we should look like.”
• “How we think about our bodies and our
beauty has everything to do with how we treat
ourselves.”
• Source: Beautyredefined.net

19. The Real Danger
• Eating disorder theorists and feminist scholars
have blamed fashion
magazines, movies, television, and advertising
for their influence of disordered eating.
Source: Thompson
and Heinberg

20. Is it really that serious??
More than five million people have been
affected by eating disorders and about 1,000
women die per year due to anorexia.
“Media exposure leads to internalization of a
slender ideal body shape, which in turn leads
to body dissatisfaction and eating disordered
symptoms” Source: Thompson and Heinberg

21. The Connection
• “Media messages screaming that thin is in
may not directly cause eating disorders but
they help create the context within which
people learn to place a value on the size and
shape of their body.” –National Eating
Disorder Association

22. To sum it up…
• The way media portrays females is unrealistic
and misleading which negatively affects our
self perception.

23. Finally…
• Its ok to want to be healthy and take care of
yourself and your body. Its not ok to deny your
own beauty and strive to achieve the
impossible.
• All images from googleimages.com