Women's magazines encourage a distorted perception of beauty.

Magazines have been a source of entertainment for a very long time and as the years
pass, the content and style in these magazines have been adapting to suit the everchanging market. What remains constant, however, is the ability of the magazine to
influence the way society perceives things.
Due to the social influence of conformity, it is human nature that with constant pressure,
society starts to change behaviour or belief to adhere to the societal norm set by a
group standard (Myers 466). Womens magazines sell an ideal perception of beauty,
that is relative to the times and ever-changing standards of beauty. This has led to an
increasing number of womens magazines hiring models that they judge to have the
ideal body and face.
Therefore, biggest argument of today would be whether womens magazines distort our
perception of beauty. This issue will be tackled by addressing the different ways
womens magazines portray their models, specifically the body types and size of models
they hire, image manipulation done on models and lastly, whether magazines are solely
responsible for this distorted perception.
Womens magazines portray their impression of the "ideal" body type through the
models they feature in their magazines. More often than not, models are excessively
slim, and this has not always been the case. In the late 80s to early 90s, some of the
most renowned models such as Cindy Crawford and Eva Herzigov had undeniably
curvy bodies, but models have only grown smaller since then (Clements).
Many women fashion magazines, especially high end ones such as Vogue and Harpers
Bazaar, promote the "size zero" ideation, and advertise many brands such as
Abercrombie and Fitch, whose clothes stop at a size large, size 10 for womens pants
(Lutz). Even womens health magazines such as Womens Health only seem to feature
lean, slender models. Furthermore, as these smaller sized clothes fit the thin models
perfectly, it also gives the impression that "size zero" and similar sizes are normal.
All this promotes the distorted perception of beauty that being beautiful means being
skinny; women who read these magazines internalise and come to believe that to be
beautiful they have to be thin. Women then try to emulate this skinny body type despite
the fact it is detrimental to their health, simply unachievable to people with more curvy
body types. The fashion world claims two sets of victims. The first are the women who
it uses as models, for a brief window, before discarding them. ... But there is a broader
circle of victims, far beyond the catwalk's catcalls.

They are ordinary women who are bombarded with these highly manufactured images
of "beauty" every day, and react either by feeling repulsive or trying out semi-starvation
themselves (Hari).
On the industry side of womens magazines, the models go through extreme diets to
achieve and maintain this "ideal" body size. They starve themselves with diets that
consist of mere water and lettuce and some even resort to soaking cotton balls in juice
to fill their stomachs; some simply did not eat at all (Hari; Models' Cotton Balls Diet:
Bria Murphy Describes Unhealthy Model Habit). In the UK, the average womens size
is 14, but the clothes used in magazine photo-shoots are usually size six or less (Frith).
However, not all womens magazines promote this excessively thin body type.
Magazines such as Verily feature models with more diverse body types. In addition,
magazines that initially featured skinny models are starting to feature more fleshier
models. One example would be Vogue, who as of 2012 established a policy that they
would not work with models younger than 16 years old or seem to have any eating
disorder (Casserly).
Entire countries have also taken measures to promote more healthy body images and
improve the statistics of eating disorders. For example, earlier this year, France banned
the use of excessively skinny models, following Israels ban in 2013. The law states that
the activity of model is banned for any person whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is lower
than levels proposed by health authorities and decreed by the ministers of health and
labour (Picy; Lubell).
Image manipulation in magazines has now become a norm, with tools such as
Photoshop. The use of Photoshop has started to become an expectation. It is now
expected that models be edited to appear slimmer, more tanned and flawless. If they
are not touched up, people usually will lose interest in the magazine because it is not up
to industry standards.
Magazines try to show that the people idealised are flawless and that they should strive
to look like that as well. Through exposure to this kind of artificial perfection, women are
exposed to standards of beauty that are completely unattainable through natural means
and they start to feel even unhappier with their bodies.
In fact, in 2011, Dove did a study and revealed that only 4% of women around the world
consider themselves to be beautiful. They also found that 72% of girls felt tremendous
pressure to be beautiful (Bahadur).

An example of this can be seen in the case of Troian Bellisario. In 2014, GQ magazine
did a swimsuit shoot with the cast of Pretty Little Liars, and as expected, the photos of
the girls were photo-shopped. Their bodies were edited to look tanner, slimmer and all
their flaws were edited out (Pretty Little Liars Star Talks GQ Photoshop Controversy).
When the issue was published, Troian took to Instagram to post three unedited photos
from the day of the shoot, including an uplifting message about how obviously the
magazine pictures were photo-shopped and it was ridiculous to assume otherwise. She
did not criticize the magazine for photo-shopping her, unlike Jennifer Lawrence with
Flare magazine when they made her appear slimmer than she was, without her
knowledge (Jennifer Lawrence's Photo-shopped Flare Cover Draws Outrage). Instead,
she made sure that her followers understood that editing was something that was just
done by magazines and that no one really looked that perfect in real life.
However, there are models who have the look that magazines want. Not every model to
grace the cover of a magazine has been photo-shopped and it is unjustified to assume
otherwise. Some models do actually appear the way they are. In fact, there are
magazines that do not use photo-shop on their models. One example would be Verily
magazine. They say, "the unique features of women contribute to women's beauty
and should be celebrated - not shamed, changed or removed" (Verily Magazine's NoPhotoshop Policy Proves It Can Be Done).
Nevertheless, magazines usually use these models for before and after shoots. They
seek out women with certain flaws and use them in a before shoot, photos completely
unedited. Then, they either apply makeup to that same model or find someone similar
without that particular flaw to angle their advertisements and to sell their products.
Magazines may not bear the full weight of distorting societys perceptions of beauty as
they advertise brands which ultimately appeals to consumers; through this demand, a
false conception of consumers being congruent with magazines distorted perception of
beauty is created.
Social media, television and other forms of media all play a part in the distorted
perception of beauty. These media platforms also carry content whereby women are
portrayed with an ideal image of beauty. However, the main fault lies with advertising
companies, as they are the creators of the content showcased in media platforms.

Advertisers are responsible for the content created along with the distorted perception
of beauty that arises as a result as one of the functions of media is to entertain; which
magazines fall under, thus the content advertisers create is geared towards the lowest
common denominator.
This shows that advertisers target their content and tone to attract (DeFleur and
Dennis 117) a specific audience and are aware of their role and do not hesitate to take
advantage of the insecurities and anxieties of young people and since adolescents are
new and inexperienced consumers, (Kilbourne 129) they are ultimately the main
targets for advertisements.
According to the cumulative theory as explained by Baran and Davis, effects of certain
routine uses over a long period of time could keep building until they become fairly
strong(248; vol. 5). This means that advertisers targeting adolescents and creating
content to target them could ultimately lead to youths completely believing in the content
displayed as time passes.
In fact, a researcher at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston found that the more
frequently girls read magazines, the more likely they were to diet and to feel that
magazines influence their ideal body shape (Kilbourne 132).
A case study of advertisers knowingly preying on adolescents would be the use of
cigarettes. To youths, a cigarette can be a symbol of independence (Kilbourne 129),
tied with the image of being cool. Even after having its bad health effects brought to life,
advertisers still use them and consumers still consume this content.
However, despite not being fully responsible for the distorted perception of beauty,
magazines still bear a heavy sense of social responsibility. All media messages are
constructed towards an organisations goal as money drives most industries. Thus,
magazines despite aiming towards gaining a profit, should have a say in what content
they take from advertisers.
In order to target readers, magazine publishers sort potential readers into neat
demographic categories using technology, then refine their products to match those
readers interest (DeFleur and Dennis 117). This lets the content taken from advertisers
be transmitted with more influence and effect.
A genre of magazine could determine how an image is read. For example, an image of
a women with the ideal beauty could mean buy this magazine and you could look
something like this on a magazine such as Cosmopolitan but mean buy this magazine,
and you could get to see women like this on a magazine like Esquire (Lacey 38).

From this example, we can see that the ideal perception of beauty affects not just
women. Men see these magazines as well, which may cause men to form an
impression of what women should look like; encouraging the distortion on the
perception of beauty further as they cause men to start to perpetuate the distortion,
adding to the pressure on women to look a certain way to be beautiful.
The cumulative effects theory supports this idea as this expectation from men adds on
to the expectations of females themselves and has adverse consequences. There is a
rising number of eating disorder cases and deaths of anorexic models like Ana Carolina
Reston and Isabelle Caro in the industry. Both of these models had their weight
criticised by people thus leading to their anorexia disorder and eventual death.
Magazines as a result, have started to change their perception of beauty and promote a
more realistic perception of beauty. Still sticking to their pre-existing beliefs and values,
plus sized models like Tess Holliday are now used to show off the beauty in women
despite their size. Thus with the same values and beliefs, consumers who still consume
this content will eventually form a healthier perception of beauty.
Magazines have a strong impact as they are a form of print media. Messages
transmitted are purely visual and usually experienced privately thus influencing us to
alter our perceptions of beauty quickly (Lacey 27).
However, the consistency theory as stated by Baran and Davis claims that consumers
tend to seek out media messages consistent with the values and beliefs of those
around them (105; vol. 7), the media user chooses what content to consume that are
usually congruent with their beliefs and views.
Thus the responsibility of this distorted perception of beauty can be described as a
continuous cycle. Advertisers and magazines are at fault for creating and publishing this
content, but there has to be a demand for them to continue this creating and publishing;
this demand comes from consumers, who choose to consume the content showcased.
In conclusion, magazines idealise the unhealthy, excessively thin body type, a distortion
from beauty in body diversity. Even with magazines using normal sized models, these
models are considered plus sized, which lends to the impression magazines set that
skinny is normal. Some plus sized models are even smaller than the average womens
size. (Beck) And while some countries and companies have taken serious action
against the evident trend of eating disorders amongst models, the majority have not.

Furthermore, not photo-shopping a model is getting far less common. A lot of these
magazines have the power and choice to not advertise photo-shopped models to
promote such warped and unattainable body standards and ideas of beauty but
continue do so anyway.
Despite the content that distorts the perception of beauty in magazine advertisements
coming from advertising companies, magazines still have the option to say no. Other
than just constructing media messages for a profit towards the company, they have a
social responsibility if they are a large and well known organisation. Yet, not many
magazines have taken the step forward in changing their perception or in helping
change the distorted perception of beauty.
Therefore, these factors mentioned are evidence that magazines do distort the image of
beauty with their perceptions and manipulations. Despite being able to help improve on,
and possible rectify this issue, nothing much has been done by magazines so far. Thus
it ultimately shows that magazines do encourage a distorted perception of beauty of
women and that society falls into this vicious cycle of materialistic consumerism where
the market is fuelled by the insecurities of the women who try to pursue the
expectations set by these magazines (Gregoire).

Word count: 2270 words

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