Media + Body Image: What Messages Are We Selling Our Daughters?

The average girl in North America will see over 80,000 ads before she even begins Kindergarten. Thereafter, she’ll be bombarded with hundred of images of “beauty” every day. The influence this has on your adolescents is alarming. Here are some statistics:

~ “In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends". -The National Institute on Media and the Family

~ The diet industry in the United States makes anywhere from 40-100 billion dollars per year (!) on temporary weight loss products.

~ 99% of girls ages 3-10 yrs. has at least one Barbie doll (an image of ideal shape and beauty?). –Mattel

~The average model today weighs 23% less than the average woman.

~Five to ten million adolescent girls and women struggle with eating disorders and various disordered eating patterns. –National Eating Disorder Association

The media is everywhere; it includes television, movies, magazines, advertisements, and even music. Images of women’s bodies, and often just parts of them (recall any ads you’ve seen lately with only the women’s legs visible?!), sell everything from cars and liquor to perfume and shoes. The media your daughter encounters on a daily basis will affect how she internalizes her own thoughts on beauty and self-worth. Adolescents are highly emotional creatures, and they are drawn to the allure of the sex appeal and happiness these ads sell. Our culture sends a constant message on women’s magazine covers that you’ll achieve health, happiness, and romance once you’ve simply lost those last ten pounds…or was it twenty? Here are some ways that you can help combat that message for your daughter.

--Consider monitoring what television shows and/or channels are being watched in your home.
--Perhaps swap your SHAPE magazine out for a copy of Whole Living or the Yoga Journal.
--Choose your own media sources according to what you would want your adolescent to see and hear.
--Praise the achievements of real women. This could be women in your own life or women in noteworthy roles and professions that you simply admire. Emphasize an appreciation for who they are and what they do, not just how they look.
-- Verbally appreciate the beauty of women who are more “average” sized. Don’t just think to yourself how great it is to see a normal looking woman in a beauty product commercial, affirm it out loud setting an example that you too see beauty in women who aren’t our typical American models.

“…every girl is beautiful, you know. It’s our arrogance that makes us think one is better than the other.” –Through Painted Deserts, by Donald Miller