The Media's Impact on Young Women

Paper Summary:

This paper offers a literary review of studies done to prove the impact of the the media on young women's drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction. The author reviews three such studies and discusses the results of each. The paper also expands on the beneficial methods of research used in each study. It offers suggestions for future research on the topic.

From the Paper:

"Results of the study indicated that many of the participants viewed themselves as being overweight, thus having high levels of both body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness even though their BMI's indicated that they were bordering on being underweight. The girls reported watching an extremely great amount of television per week; however, the amount of television watched, great as it was, was not related to the rise in body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Certain types of TV programs were instead found to have that relationship. Programs such as soap operas and movies, for example, were related to the rise in body dissatisfaction experienced by these women, while the watching of music videos led to them experiencing a high drive for thinness. These results indicate that the types of programs watched on TV matters more towards a woman's susceptibility towards body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness than amount of TV watched."

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