EXPOSURE TO MEDIA IMAGES OF FEMALE ATTRACTIVENESS AND CONCERN WITH BODY-WEIGHT AMONG YOUNG-WOMEN

Despite the popular belief that the thin standard of female attractive ness currently presented in the media is a primary contributor to the high level of concern with body weight among women, experimental studi es have not shown that exposure to media images increases women's weig ht concern. Three experiments are reported demonstrating that exposure to media images does often result in increased weight concern among w omen, but that body dissatisfaction, a stable personality characterist ic, is a moderator of vulnerability to this effect. Although most wome n reported higher weight concern when exposed to media vs. neutral ima ges, women with low initial body dissatisfaction did not. In addition, this research suggests that negative effects on weight concern may re sult from even passive exposure to media images, but that exposure to realistic attractiveness is less likely to cause increased weight conc ern. The ethnicity of the participants in these studies reflected that of the local population, with over 90% white, The nonwhite participan ts primarily belonged to one of the following groups; Asian, Pacific I slander Latino.