Starting from the early 1900’s, the ideal body image form for women was to be tall and slender. The Gibson Girls created by an Illustrator called Charles Dana Gibson, was an iconic satirical pen and ink character which marked the synthesis of prevailing beauty at the turn of the century. The Actress Camille Clifford was the quintessential Gibson girl with a thin waist and wide hip appearance. Women began to conform to the voluptuous ideal by wearing a swan-bill corset to achieve the incongruous and exaggerated S-curve shape (Anon, [n.d]).

 

The 1920’s begun a new body image trend which was known as the ‘Flapper’. Flappers were trendy independent women who had bob haircuts and a slender, leaner build. They smoked, drank, danced, listened to jazz and even treated sex in a casual manner (Anon, [n.d]). From a voluptuous, hourglass figure, the women’s ideal body trend has changed to a much thinner, leaner physique.

 

In the 1950’s post-war era, Marilyn Monroe was potentially the most iconic female figure with the curvaceous and fuller body appearance. This was the ideal female body image trending in this era, as it was considered more beautiful, sexier than thinness (Bushak, 2015). According to Bushak (2015), in this era the society started to disgrace skinnier females, in contrast, the media shames overweight figures today. Subsequently, advertisements began portraying skinny women as being hopeless in romantic pursuits and their only hope was by gaining weight. Not only has the evolution of women’s body image changed again, but the society began to shame the Flapper style and praised the new curvaceous, rounded body. 

 

In the late 20th Century, a new trend emerged in fashion known as heroin chic: Kate Moss depicted this slender, drugged look of a heroin chic (Bushak, 2015). Kate’s famous quote entailed an opposite view of the mid 20th Century. She said: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” (Selby, 2014) This was perhaps the incentive for people to start the unhealthy obsession of being thin.

 

 

 

 

 

Since the ideal body shape and weight trends are always changing, women have been pressured to conform to the current ideals. As a result, throughout the year’s women have endured pain in attempting to follow the current trend. For instance, women wore restrictive corsets that caused them discomfort and immobility, just for the sake of particular fashions (Grogan, 1999). And the obsession of fitting in with society norms.

 

According to Wykes and Gunter (2005), despite normal hunger, slender shape and a successful social life, many young women have gone to the extreme of putting their lives at risk by starving themselves, some of these cases have resulted in death. This clearly shows how desperate some people are to look thin as well as to feel accepted by society.

 

“Body image continues to develop throughout a person’s life and negative body images have been linked to the development of eating disorder (Bierma, 2003)”. Consequently, the understanding of the correlation between body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders is significant (Bale, 2006). As these two topics both have a bearing but do not explain the problem exclusively. To elaborate, if a person is not happy with their body they can simply change their bad eating habits, whereas if someone has an eating disorder, they can’t unless they seek help and advice.

 

According to Bale (2006), researchers Harrison and Cantor (1997), indicated that women in their college age who are affected by eating disorders are threatening their physical and mental health. Harrison and Cantor (1997) found that the media can heavily influence and lead women towards an eating disorder and becoming more self-conscious regarding their body image. Furthermore, the researchers also state that “the media play a significant role in transmitting thinness – oriented norms and values to children, adolescents, and young adults” (Bale, 2006, P.16). The outcome is society conforming to the thin body image norms as they are influenced by the media.

 

“Body dissatisfaction has been connected to media consumption in that media are often identified as sources women turn to for information about their physical appearance, and thin models and actresses are ostensibly the standard in current media” (Van Vonderen, and Kinnally, 2012, P. 51). In the same way as Harrison and Cantor (1997), Van Vonderen and Kinnally (2012) discusses how the media has an impact on some women.

 

In [Body Image in the Media – A Documentary], Isabel Lasker expressed her opinion that “What’s average now was way too thin, 50 years ago”. Lasker indicates that in today’s society, women are too slim in comparison to Marilyn Monroe’s curvaceous, 1950’s body ideal.

 

One of the questions from this documentary was “In what ways has body image begun to improve?” Angela Stedman said “I think women exercise more then they did even when I was young; kids are starting to exercise early and I think that’s a good thing.” Stedman implied the positivity of how the media has influenced adolescents into fitness.

 

“Researchers have used variety of different techniques to study body satisfaction and have concluded that most women in western cultures are dissatisfied with their body weight and shape” (Grogan, 1999, P. 25).