This affect can be very risky and extremely harmful to a woman's health. If a woman tries to look like a model when it is not possible for her, then something can easily go wrong. .
Things can go wrong when a woman reacts to the unhealthy body images of the female models that they view in the fashion magazines. Some women that experience the influences of the magazines ultra thin models go on crash diets and have unhealthy eating habits, such as anorexia and bulimia. Although these are some of the more dangerous extremes, a woman can still be affected just as much with less severe health consequences. One of these influences was summarized from Bordo. "Women want to attain a cool relationship with food. This means that they have to overcome their power struggle with the food that they are tempted to eat. This relationship causes a woman not to eat when she is hungry because she wants others to think that food does not matter to her in any way." Women do these things because they want to look like the models that they constantly view in the magazines; a look that is extremely thin. .
Bordo states that " women are continually bombarded with advertisements for weight loss products and programs"(p139). This statement can not be closer to the truth. Within a fashion magazine it seems as though for every page that has an article in it there are two pages of advertisements. Each of the advertisements implies that women should be "learning to control their weight, and [that the] romantic mystification of diet pills [and tips should be a] part of the obscure, eternal arsenal of feminine arts to be passed from generation to generation"(p139). This means that old and new diet fads and tips should be shared with all of a woman's female friends and relatives. In this way fashion magazines could be considered just another of one of a woman's friends. This friend not only shows a woman what they are expected to look like through the legion of advertisements with thin models, but also how to make themselves look like that.
