The media portrays the idea that thin is beautiful, and beauty will bring a women success and happiness. In an article Linda C. Andrist writes that "the media influences young women about what their bodies should look like, suggesting through every print and television advertisement that the ideal body is extremely thin" (119). She also states that the average model is 117 lbs and 5'11", while the average woman is 140 lbs and 5'4", implying that models are 98 % thinner than American women (120). Many women take drastic measures to change their bodies and manipulate their appearance, desperate to tailor themselves to an impractical standard (Andrist 122).
An author writes that "advertising is now a $180 billion/year industry. It has been estimated that Americans are exposed to between 500 and 3,000 advertising images each day" (Andrist 120). Advertisement and mass media are particularly powerful influences on modern day society. With women being exposed to these images daily, their perception of body ideals are being distorted to an unnatural, computerized figure. Body image anxiety starts at considerably young ages. Authorities suggest that according to NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) children as young as 5 years old experience body dissatisfaction (Andrist 119). Some of NEDA's statistics provide that "42% of first through third grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat" (Andrist 119). Authorities state that in most developed countries, watching television has emerged to be, children's primary activity, and it is significantly more difficult for adolescents to determine whether what they see is real or not, making them more vulnerable to the images and messages that are transmitted (Lopez-Guimera et al. 388). Experimental studies featured in Lopez-Guimera's paper indicate that exposure to pictures of the thin body and beauty ideal displayed through media like magazines, television shows and commercials, increase internalization of thin ideal, and disordered eating behaviors in young women (388).
