The ads in all magazines promote one thing; skinny is the only way to be. From youth girl magazines to magazines inferred for adults, all women in ads are skinny, and this represents that you have to be skinny to be pretty, or get the man, or even to get the job.
When I looked over the ads closely it really surprised me. I never consciously realized how much the ads were promoting you have to be skinny and have no hips to achieve the certain things they are promoting. It makes me sick, that all these ads have so much power and affect. The ads make you feel that if you don’t look like the skinny girls in the ad, you just aren’t good enough.
Magazine ads also bring in sex appeal with being skinny. They basically say that if you aren’t skinny, you won’t be sexy, and you won’t get a man. They try to fool you into thinking that if you buy their product you’ll become like that girl, you’ll be sexy, and skinny. Ads also show businesswomen as skinny and sexy. That makes a person reading that think that they have to be skinny in order to be successful.
I think it’s fair to say that most teenage girls think they have to be skinny to be beautiful. I know how that feels. All through out high school I had a bad eating problem. I wasn’t over weight at all, but I thought I was because I didn’t look exactly like one of those girls in the magazine ads. I had three-month periods. For three months I would eat 200-300 calories a day, and run over 3 miles, plus more exercise. Usually then I would lose 25 to 30 pounds, and I thought I was happy, but really I was depressed. Then I would get in a three month phase where I wouldn’t care anymore, and eat everything in my site, and gain back all the weight plus more.
My mom tried to get my help with a psychiatrist, but nothing seemed to work. To this day nothing has worked its kind of a day to day trial. But now I have learned to except myself more. I see all these ads and it makes me sad, knowing so many girls are going through what I have. These ads promote the only way to achieve complete happiness, and be beautiful, is to be skinny, even if you have to starve yourself.
