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Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem

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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
I know you can be underweight, and I know you can be overweight, but can you ever just be weight? #selfesteemandmodels
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cate3710
10/15/09

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith: I think you can in Europe. #selfesteemandmodels
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girlzilla
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Are we ever going to start holding people personally responsible for their own self-esteem? Instead of blaming the advertising/fashion industry for it? I'm not saying that those industries cannot or don't exert influence over how women perceive themselves, but pointing the finger first and foremost at models/ads and not realizing that no one can make you feel a certain way unless you LET them... that's only giving women permission to victimize themselves rather than sit up and say "you know what, that model looks damn good all skinny and tall/plump and dewey and I don't look like that, but that's OK and it doesnt reflect on me, and her looking like that is completely unnecessary cuz I would STILL buy those sweeeet shoes, but I'm not gonna huff and puff about it because they're wayyyy more important things in life that determine my happiness anyways... " #selfesteemandmodels
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Katxyz
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
"Dirk Smeesters of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne in Germany and Naomi Mandel of Arizona State University
in Tempe recommended overweight consumers avoid looking at ads with any models -- thin or heavy."

Avoiding looking at any ads with any models sounds just about impossible without locking yourself in a dark little closet and screening visitors. #selfesteemandmodels
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jigglyball
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but why is physical appearance always the indicator researchers use in self esteem studies? I mean, I understand why (especially given the context of this particular study), but I think a lot of this research just reinforces the (ludicrous) idea that self esteem is something you gain primarily from external factors. My mom and dad always said that self esteem meant not being shaken by descrepancies between you and beauty ideals/restrictive social norms. Then again, they're optimistic folk. #selfesteemandmodels
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tallgirl-in-heels
10/15/09

@jigglyball: I wonder if the test subjects were mostly young women and how the findings would change if a study like this was done on "older" women. It seems to me that the more time you've had to build your self-esteem in ways that aren't necessarily related to how you look, the less affected you'd be. Anecdotally speaking, when I was younger I would have been one of those women whose self-esteem plummeted after looking at models. But now I find I'm much less affected. I think that's because over time I've built my self-esteem though things like education, career, travel, and fulfilling personal relationships. I know aging is a whole other can of worms in our society, and not every woman is fortunate to have the same opportunities I've had. But still, I wonder how the age of the test subjects might factor into the findings. #selfesteemandmodels
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Bgirl_Hamster
10/15/09

@tallgirl-in-heels: Oh so true. Looking at pictures of models doesn’t effect my self-esteem at all anymore. What does make me feel crappy about myself is when a girl my age has accomplished something I could only dream about, or when a peer in my classes answers a question flawlessly, brilliantly, and confidently, or when college friends’ careers really take off. I so wonder if age and marital status are a determining factor in what lowers self-esteem. #selfesteemandmodels
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Maybe the thing to do is to stop reading fashion magazines at all, until they just put in pictures of clothes without any women in them. #selfesteemandmodels
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lermanzo
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
i am a size 14-16. too fat for 99.9% of designer lines. THIS IS WHY FASHION MAGS ARE DEPRESSING. #selfesteemandmodels
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mommy_dearest
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
The same is true with the recent spate of older models. Yes, they have grey hair, but they are gorgeous, skinny, with smooth perfect skin. The only difference is the color of their hair. #selfesteemandmodels
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purpleshoes reminds everyone to take typing breaks and stretch, ow
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Mia Tyler used to send me into fits of despair as a teenager for this very reason. Before I got my shit together on the body-acceptance front, it was possible for me to believe that the only difference between me and a skinny, beautiful model was weight. Then plus-sized models (read: models closer to the middle of the weight-height bell-curve) came along, ruining my adolescent conviction that the only thing between me and looking like Gap ads was that pesky eating habit. Americans seem to believe, in general, that physical beauty should be the result of personal virtue and dietary purity. Seeing evidence that physical beauty is actually a quirk of genetics and is not re-assignable based on who's hungriest does strip away a certain illusion of control over the world and the world's response to you. #selfesteemandmodels
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PaintedTrollop
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Of course they do. Women's magazines are intended to lower our self esteem so that we keep on buying beauty products.

Advertising companies spend millions on psych studies to learn how to get to us, and then they feed off our insecurities to make money.

The good news is that by about age 50 none of this shit matters any more, because then you're too busy with your family members and friends getting sick and dying to spend much time obsessing about what you look like. #selfesteemandmodels
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mommy_dearest
10/15/09

screwing up the comments. dang it.
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Edited by mommy_dearest at 10/15/09 11:59 AM mommy_dearest was starred mommy_dearest was unstarred

schlegs84
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
I feel completely differently than the women in this study. I love looking at Crystal Renn's pictures while I'm shopping for jeans. Before I moved to the city (and I still encounter this in some chain stores) the plus sizes are scuttled to the back and there are only caftans and elastic waists on a tiny rack (if they haven't been completely moved to the web) . Of course I would like to change parts of my body but I also love being in my skin. It's nice to feel celebrated when I shop.

Speaking of jean shopping: BLUE CIRCLES FTW! (God Lane Bryant jeans rock my world). #selfesteemandmodels
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MissFiFi
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
I think it is time to stop funding these types pf studies and move on. Not all women are jealous of models or feel bad when they look at them as some of us can distinguish it is a model's job to look good all the time.
The only thing that slightly bums me out with a fashion mag is the price of stuff they list. "$2500 for boots, what a bargain!" How about No? #selfesteemandmodels
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rah29
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Sometimes plus-sized models make me feel worse. I can look at a 'normal' model and think OK, I'll NEVER be that size, it's a physical impossibility what with my boobies and all that, so no worries. But I see a beautiful plus-sized model and a part of me does think, shit, that's how I ought to look. My size, except toned and photogenic and stunningly gorgeous. It's more attainable, which makes it harder on me that I can't attain it. It's like bags (I am a bag fiend); I won't look at an Hermes bag and feel sad that I can't have it, because it's so out of my reach it might as well be on Pluto. But I can look at a £150 bag and mope all day that I can't have it, because I feel like if I just saved a little more, or had a tiny bit more cash to throw around, I could have had it. #selfesteemandmodels
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colormeroutine
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
Sometimes pictures like the one above make me worry that I am somehow cramming myself into pants about 12 sizes too small and no one wants to tell me, because she looks just like I do naked and last time I checked I was not even close to plus-sized. Which makes the irrational part of my brain convinced that I actually must be wearing clothes many sizes too small and somehow not noticing my secret hugeness. Then the rational part of my brain reminds me that the girl above looks damn good and that modeling standards are INSANE
Then I just get depressed about the whole thing. It doesn't lower my self-esteem, it lowers my world view #selfesteemandmodels
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MilointheMeadow
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
I get insecure when perusing women's mags, but it actually has nothing to do with body shape. When I was a teen, I had terrible skin (cystic acne, blackheads, whiteheads, etc.) It took years to clear up and I've made peace with my skin now.

So when I see ads and fashion spreads depicting girls with impossibly poreless skin and a creamy peaches-and-cream complexion.. well, that does make me shrink a little.

Underweight, overweight, short, tall, busty, flat (and how about women over 65?) - I would love to see a range of women's body types on display in women's mags. But I want to see the **reality** of these bodies and not their "perfected" Photoshopped selves. I want to see pores and fine lines, skinny girls with cellulite, crooked teeth!

Idealistic, yes, and some might say completely unmarketable. But I am BORED with women's mags and their steady stream of sameness, month after month after month. #selfesteemandmodels
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unmoldednicole
10/15/09

@MilointheMeadow: I have terrible skin all over and I also get insecure when I look at pictures like the one above. She's all golden and shiny and flawless. #selfesteemandmodels
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MilointheMeadow
10/15/09

@unmoldednicole: When I was growing up, I didn't know what Photoshop was, and - call me gullible, naive, whatever - I really thought the women in cosmetics ads had skin like that. Perfectly smooth, even, and dewy, no blemishes, no freckles. Hello, dysmorphia.

It gets me wondering: is anything we're seeing actually representative? When your body, skin, hair, nails, etc. are all retouched - the model becomes just a template of a female body at that point. Very little of what we're looking at has any truth to it, from what I can tell. #selfesteemandmodels
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SonicNapoleonic
10/15/09

In reply to Study: Even Plus-Size Models Lower Self-Esteem
It's still reenforcing a certain standard of "beauty" that many people do not think they can achieve (unless by plastic surgery and the like). It's unfair that we have so much emphasis on beauty=youth/white and sometimes skinny.
What happened to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? #selfesteemandmodels
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