The Negative Effects of TV Advertising on Adolescent Women Specifically Body and Self Image

The Negative Effects of TV Advertising on Adolescent Women Specifically Body Self Image
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The Negative Effects of TV Advertising on Adolescent Women Specifically Bodyand Self-Image
Introduction
The issue of television (TV) advertising has generated heated debates regarding its impact on adolescent women. While TV adverts constitute a critical source of information, critics are wary of its negative impact on adolescent women. It is noteworthy that the advertisement sector often focuses on adolescent women as one of its viable market segments, since they are easily influenced by the media portrayal of an “ideal” woman. Such women are of great importance to marketers since they can spend a significant proportion of their income on products being advertised on TV. Similarly, adolescent women who depend on their parents/guardians can easily influence the latter to spend on household products that appeal to them. Another thing that makes an adolescent women a critical target market segment for marketers is their ability influence the society’s lifestyle as well as overall trends. According to Osad’an and Hanna (2015:37), adolescent women have become more aware of their respective body images mainly due to the body images of the models portrayed in advertising. With regard to body image, Dinc and Alisinanoglu (2010:65) assert that the body is often in the limelight as well as open to the evaluations of other people. As a psychological construct, the body consists of perceptional, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions. Attitudes towards one’s own body are integrals to such dimensions. Dinc and Alisinanoglu (2010:65) perceive the body image as a multidimensional structure that represents behaviors, thoughts and feelings relating to an individual’s own physical features. In addition to its influence of body image, TV advertising also has a great influence of adolescent women’s self-esteem. Particularly, such women’s self-esteem declines as theyrealize that their body images do not conform to the body images of the models portrayed on television advertisements. This research paper examines the negative influence of TV advertising on adolescent women, with a special focus on their self-image and body image.
Research Question
This research is guided by the following research question:
What are the negative effects of television portrayal of the “thin ideal” female images of an adolescent women’s body and self-image?
Literature Review
Different researchers define the concept of body image differently. It refers to one’s feelings, perceptions, and thoughts regarding her or his body. Since the body is the first thing that people notice in social interaction, it is largely subject to other people’s compliments and criticisms. As such, body image forms the basis of developing overall self-respect. It is a psychological construct consisting of behavioral, perceptional, and cognitive perceptions. A multifaceted structure denotes thoughts, behaviors and feelings regarding one’s own physical features (Dinc and Alisinanoglu 2010:65). The body image develops in an ongoing process since it undergoes changes over the entire lifetime. However, the changes in women’s physical competence and appearances are more pronounced during their puberty stages. The physical, natural physical changes of adolescent women’s bodies during puberty coupled with the TV ads’ portrayal of an ideal human body have a critical impact on the perceptions of body image. Specifically, adolescent body image is deemed as a multifaceted, interpenetrated structure, which is integral to identify formation. Various issues, including identity formation, sexual maturation, and rapid growth and development occurring during puberty influence the perceptions of women’s body image.
Women’s anxieties regarding their body imagebecomes more intense during puberty. Both the psychological and physical changes during this stage of development augment the women’s focus on body image. It is during this stage that women construct images regarding their body appearances. There are various factors influencing adolescent women’s perception of their body images, including culture, friends and family. While negative body image is gained later in life, television advertising plays a key role in shaping the perceptions of adolescent women’s body image. It is evident that the development of negative or positive perception of women’s body images is largely dependent on the TV advertising’s portrayal of ideal body image (Dinc and Alisinanoglu 2010:66). Although socio-cultural factors like peer pressure and norms, school condition, family, culture, social class and ethnicity contribute towards shaping the body image, television advertising plays the greatest role in portraying the so-called acceptable body image.
Television advertising is a powerful tool for creating and conveying social values regarding women’s appearance. Cultural messages focus on sample opinions regarding repulsiveness and attractiveness as well as gender-based expectations. These social-cultural ideals are conveyed through the media, including television advertising. Particularly, it influences women to adapt shared socio-cultural standards regarding attractiveness and physical appearance (Dinc and Alisinanoglu 2010:66). In addition, it creates role models by accentuating particular body types at the expense of others. In general, television advertising reflects acceptable social norms. While TV advertising affects the perception of both males and females, its emphasis on idealized females’ body sizes and types is more intense than males’. Once adolescent women compare themselves with such ideal body images on TV advertising, they are more likely to engage in negative self-evaluation.
Studies have revealed that television images of ideal body results in body dissatisfaction and negative self-perception (Dinc and Alisinanoglu 2010:66). The ideal woman standards portrayed by TV advertising are largely unattainable among most women. The most influential ideal portrayed by TV advertising related to attractiveness and beauty. It portrays an attractive and beautiful woman as being ultra-thin. The television influence on ultra-thin woman mounts pressure on adolescent women as it intensifies their endeavor to adhere to such ideals (Russello 2009). The socio-cultural ideals portrayed by TV advertising, including the ultra-thin ideal, becomes more influential once they have been internalized. Agreeing or accepting to the socio-cultural ideals of beauty and attractiveness amounts to internalization of such ideals. Owing to the media’s role in shaping the society’s ideals, researchers have established a positive correlation between television viewing and internalization of ultra-thin ideal (Russello 2009). This results in the problem of body image dissatisfaction since the ideal body images of women portrayed by TV advertising are largely unattainable.
Exposure to television advertising results in profound changes in adolescent women’s perception of their body images. There is a high prevalence of body discontentment among women exposed to more television advertisement. This body discontentment or dissatisfaction is more pronounced among teenage girls during puberty. With TV portrayals of ideal body size and shape, adolescent women become increasingly secure of their changing bodies. The TV advertising crates the thin-is-attractive mentality among adolescent women to an extent that it motivates them to start dieting. Such dieting paves way for the onset of body image dissatisfaction. In an effort to attain the ideal body size and shape, diet programs, cosmetics, and fitness have become more lucrative in recent years. It is noteworthy that the TV advertising negatively influences adolescent women as they try to measure their body shapes and sizes against unrealistic body image ideals. Russello (2009)assertsthat most of thewomen portrayed in the media are 15% below the average weight of women. This statistic underscores the fact that the ideal body images portrayed by television advertising are unrealistic and can only augment the problem of body image dissatisfaction, especially among adolescent women.
In addition, the TV ads’ portrayal of ideal woman has a negative influence on adolescent women’s perception of a successful and happy woman. Particularly, too much exposure to television advertising influences such women towards believing that they must achieve the “ideal” body shape and size in order to be attractive and beautiful. They also end up believing that achieving such television ideals of a physically attractive and beautiful woman will facilitate them to attract boyfriends and have many friends. To them, a happy and successful woman is the one who is able to attract many friends, including boyfriends. Such belief results adolescent women becoming obsessed with their physical appearances, including body size and weight, mannerism, jewelry, makeup, hair, skin, and clothing. Nevertheless, some careers and activities focus on shape, size, and fitness. Given that adolescent women are often concerned with their respective future careers, the urge to conform to the socio-cultural ideals intensifies as they are exposed to TV advertising.
The social comparison theory provides an explanation of adolescent wome...