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Study sizes up teen girls, magazines
By Marilyn Elias
USA TODAY
Photos and articles in young women's magazines such as Seventeen and Glamour help convince many teen girls that they're fat and must diet, a study out Monday suggests.
On the upside, however, these magazines also spur girls to exercise, say Alison Field of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Field's study, in Pediatrics, is believed to be the first to go directly to adolescent girls - 548 in grades 5 through 12 - to find out how much magazines influence their body images.
About seven in 10 say magazine pictures influence their ideas of the perfect body shape, and nearly half report wanting to lose weight because of a magazine picture. But only 29% are actually overweight.
The more frequently girls read magazines, the more likely they are to say they had dieted and exercised because of an article and to feel that magazines influence their ideal body shape, Field says.
Body fixated girls may be the ones most drawn to fashion magazines, Field says. "But the relationship here is too strong to explain it in this way."
Films and TV contribute to the problem, she says. "For the public health's sake, the media should stop featuring so many women who look like they're in need of medical attention."
Patrice Adcroft, new Seventeen editor in chief, agrees that magazines ought to show more average women. In the March issue, the first she has overseen, a "plus-size" model is included in the prom spread. "I have a slew of reader letters thanking us, girls saying, "Now I know I can look cool even though I'm bigger." She says there'll be more women of varied body sizes in future issues.
No matter what the media show, parents should challenge unrealistic body images, says Cincinnati psychologist, Ann Kearney-Cooke, an eating-disorders specialist. "Adolescent girls are vulnerable because they're always looking outside themselves to figure out who they should be."