Images of female bodies are everywhere, from advertising to porn, the media uses body parts sell everything from food to fantasy, and the sad part about it, women everywhere will buy into the fact that if they can just loose those few pounds, or if they have a particular makeup, or dress by the ‘at time’ designer, they will have it all… the perfect marriage, perfect children, amazing sex, the career of careers, and the Posh and Becks social life. The stakes are huge for us all in so many ways. Its not just a culture of our teens, its across generations, its at pandemic proportion and something needs to be done. If we can’t get the media to listen, we must educate the consumers, our teens. Fact… women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new clothes, and diet aids. Another fact… research indicates, like it wasn’t obvious, that exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating habits in women and girls. Its a cycle that we must stop. It is disturbing that media images of female beauty are unattainable for all but a very small number of women. Apparently that a woman with Barbie-doll proportions, her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel.  So, in theory a real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and would eventually die from malnutrition. And… research suggest that in the USA 99% of girls aged 3 to 10 years old own at least one Barbie doll.

Malibu Barbie from 1971

Still, the number of real life women and girls who seek a similarly underweight body is epidemic, and they can suffer equally devastating health consequences. Of course there is a need for advertising, we need to be consumers, and they want us to buy their products and/or services but considering the average person in the United States sees approximately 3,000 ads in magazines, billboards, and television every day, teenagers are getting the wrong message about body image much too often! Who cares about statistics from the USA? The answer is simple! We should all care!!  The USA has a huge influence on all markets and media, and as such, it was an all powering influence on teens.  Without living in a dictatorship, you can help your teen minimize the media’s impact on her body image by talking to her about how photos of models are altered and airbrushed, by agreeing on ways you can limit your teen daughter from the type of media doing the damage, and start an advertising awareness program in her school.  Take responsibility for this just like you would about all other teenage considerations, like breast examinations and breast cancer… vaccinations… safe sex… This doesn’t mean that you need to take away all teen magazines, just be aware of which ones take teen issues into consideration, and which ones exploit this.