Proven! So thin models influence our self-image
Underweight is idealized - that has consequences
In Western societies, the thin or even underweight female body is idealized? Skinny models are omnipresent in mass media and advertising.
It has long been assumed that these images have an influence on what we find attractive, desirable and desirable. And that our media consumption is most likely related to the rejection of one's own body, lack of self-esteem and eating disorders.
Now researchers have been able to prove for the first time that the contact with photos of thin models can actually have a harmful effect on our self-image and our health.
The test with people who do not use media
To find people who are not exposed to such images, the cognitive scientist Jean-Luc Jucker from the Swiss Université de Neuchâtel and his team traveled to the mosquito coast of Nicaragua. In some of the villages there is no electricity - and therefore no television. People have virtually no contact with the media.
In two villages, Jucker recruited 80 women and men aged between 16 and 78 years. All participants were first asked to use a computer program to create the ideal female body for them.
Then the inhabitants of one village were shown 72 pictures from a fashion catalog of a western manufacturer in which the models were thin. They carried sizes 32 to 34. The other villagers were given photos of models that we call "plus size"? would be designated. They carried size 44 to 54. Both teams then got 15 minutes to look at the pictures.
After only 15 minutes, the beauty ideal had changed
The villagers were then asked a second time to use the? Ideal? Female body. The result was as predictable as it was frightening: Those participants who looked at photos of thin models now created women who were thinner than those they originally favored. The others who had looked at the curvier women now drew thicker ideal bodies. The beauty ideals of both groups had changed after only 15 minutes of contact with the photos.
"It is very interesting that a short contact with the pictures is sufficient to show that the body ideal of humans demonstrably changes," said Jucker
The scientists did not investigate how long the effect will last. But Jucker is convinced: Since people in the West are constantly confronted with images of thin women, it does not matter how long the effect lasts. She probably never goes away.
