Women Body Image

Introduction Every human being feels the pressures of society. Moreover, external features are quickly judged and “norms” are pushed upon us through many avenues. Specifically in this paper will examine Myers statement, “It should be acknowledged the advertising industry consciously targets the body image of its female audience” (Myers, 1992, p. 128). Then we will consider the prevalent persuasive strategies and how to use those in other contexts.

Summary of Article This article starts with the hypothesis that television programming and advertising have a negative effect on how women view their body. Myers and Biocca state there is a problem with females, especially adolescents, trying to maintain unhealthy weights because of the way they view themselves (Myers, 1992, p. 112). Researchers conducted a study where women took a mood test, watched approximately twenty-six minutes of television commercials, took another mood test, then gave a projection of what they thought their body looked like. Consistent with previous studies “young females tended to overestimate their body size” (p. 125).

Persuasive Strategies By simply letting study subjects view television programs and advertising and then checking their mood, the facilitators allowed implicit conclusions to be made, that is persuadees were
For example, in my many years of teaching at faith-based children’s programs, when asking children to write an answer to a question on a piece of paper the answers vary more than when spoken to the group. This shows the same strategy of allowing implicit conclusions to be made can have a deeper impact because central processing is taking place. Going hand in hand with why the answers were more varied, the social comparison theory explains the premise. If a child deems their answer is not the same as everyone else, they are more likely to change their wording to find