Throughout different cultures and time periods, the qualifications with which women are considered to be attractive change. For example, in the Renaissance period, women of a heavier set were considered beautiful because it meant they were healthy and most likely wealthy for having access to food. Today, in the United States and countries all over the world, the image of beauty has transformed to being defined by thinness and perfection. There are various factors that have contributed to societies' change of attitude, but according to research the most prominent contributor to this way of thinking is social and mass media. Over the past few decades with the growing popularity of technology, mass media has brainwashed young women into striving to be unrealistically thin, a goal that has caused many women to have body dissatisfaction, depression and eating disorders. 

Women were not always this focused on their body image and attractiveness. Through out the 20th century, feminists have made great strides to earn the right to vote, fight for equal pay with men, and fight traditional gender roles. Before WWI and WWII, traditional women's roles were mainly to be pretty, loving house wives. As more women joined the work forces during the two wars, these roles slowly began to change and over time we have broken conventional gender roles that define women to just be a pretty face. However, with the use of media becoming more popular in the early 2000's, women are being portrayed once again as thin and perfect objects whose worth is determined by how much they weigh. In magazines, commercials, and TV, the girl who is popular, successful, and most likely paired with an attractive man, is always skinny and beautiful. This message teaches young girls that in order to be successful in their life like the models, they too must be thin and beautiful. This mind set not only sets women back in history, but is very damaging to a young female audience. 

 There are various studies that prove the psychological damage caused to girls is not only in the United States but all over the world. In "Presenting Thin Media Models Affects Women's Choice of Diet or Normal Snacks", Barbara Krahe and Christina Krause studied women that were exposed to thin and normal sized media models, and then monitored their restrained eating and snacking behaviors. In this study, fifty undergraduate female students at a college in Germany were selected and randomly assigned to one of two conditions, beauty advertisements with thin women and beauty advertisements with normal size women. After being exposed to these advertisements, the participants were given a break and offered a variety of snacks which each came in a diet or non-diet version. In result, significantly more women exposed to the thin-model advertisements picked diet snacks than women exposed to the normal-model advertisement (Krahe and Krause 351). Krahe and Krause also describe the detrimental amounts of self-objectification among women. This is the tendency of women considering their bodies objects that are compared to societies beauty norms. By not meeting the impossible standards of models and actresses, it leads to psychological problems like appearance anxiety and body shame (Krahe and Krause 349). This experiment is a good example that shows how simply being exposed to one advertisement can effect the way women pick what they are going to eat next. For many of the women, this small clip showing thin women caused them to immediately be dissatisfied with themselves and have lower self esteem, so it's no wonder that constantly being surrounded with media like this has had a negative effect on many. 

Another study that proves that constant exposure to perfect models and the thin-ideal in media is damaging to women is "Can The Media Affect Us? Social Comparison, Self-Discrepancy, And The Thin Ideal." In this experiment, Gayle R. Bessenoff recruited one hundred twelve female undergraduates and after examination separated them into two groups, high self discrepant and low self discrepant. They were then exposed to two different kinds of advertisements, clothing advertisements with thin women and product advertisements without thin women. Following this, their levels of self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, bulimic tendencies, and drive for thinness where measured. Bessenoff found that the exposure to the thin-ideal advertisements lowered self esteem and increased levels of body dissatisfaction and depression. He also found that the women with higher levels of self discrepancy were more prone to social comparison to the thin women, ultimately leading to negative consequences (Bessenoff 241). According to Bessenoff, the habit of women comparing themselves to others, especially thin women presented in media, is the main source of low self esteem, weight concerns, and even eating disorders. In this article, self discrepancy is described as ways in which one feels like they fall short from significant standards, and according to Bessenoff self discrepancy is a contributor to social comparison and the negative effects that come with it (Bessenoff 240). 

Striving for the "thin ideal" is psychologically damaging and studies show that the primary cause for this is mass media's effect on women. However, in the study, "Judging The Difference Between Attractiveness and Health: Does Exposure to Model Images Influence the Judgments Made By Men And Women?", Ian D. Stephen and Treshi-Marie Perera show how media can not only effect women's perceptions of themselves, but also men's perceptions of women, another factor that can influence women and their body image. The normal image of men portrayed in mass media is muscular or normal weight, which is excepted by other men and women. On the other hand, the normal image of women portrayed in mass media is underweight, which seems to be expected and preferred by most men and other women. This study focuses on how men and women are attracted to one another based on weight in the face after being exposed to images of models. Research has shown that facial adiposity serves as a good judgment for both attractiveness and health, as well as body mass index and waist to hip ratio being an important factor of a woman's attractiveness. A group of Chinese men and women ranging in weight that participated in this study were asked to wear tight forming clothes and were taken pictures of. After being shown images of models and then being shown pictures of the participants, both men and women preferred the model with a lower body mass index for attractiveness rather than healthy appearance (Stephen and Perera 3). This experiment shows that after being exposed to thin models in media, their expectations of women become higher and unrealistic. Considering that most women would like to be seen as attractive in the eyes of others, these expectations of men play a large factor in a woman's self-evaluation. 

Not only does mass media have a large impact on young women and adolescents, but social media does as well, if not more. In "Social Media Effects on Young Women's Body Image Concerns: Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research", Richard Perloff discusses how certain aspects of social media such as a strong peer presence, the exchange of many types of pictures, and social comparisons among one another have detrimental effects on body image among young women. These negative effects consist of body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, and thin body ideals. Perloff points out that whereas the majority of research on media and body dissatisfaction focuses on media such as magazines, TV and advertisements, the majority of young people use wireless internet and social media as their primary source of media. According to Perloff, social media is more responsible for the body image issues among young girls because of it's interactive element. The interactivity and personal element that comes with social media makes it much easier to become attached to societies ideal version of beauty- thin and beautiful (Perloff 364). Social comparison is a huge contributor to body image concerns because girls are constantly posting pictures of themselves and are constantly being exposed to pictures of their friends, all the while internally comparing themselves to one another.

Although most people are aware of the negative effects media can have on women, it is shocking to discover that these feelings of body dissatisfaction are occurring among girls who haven't even made it to middle school. Evidence shows that girls as young as nine years old have reported that they felt too fat and were dissatisfied with their body shape which are feelings that lead to depression and negative self perception. In "Body Dissatisfaction: Can A Short Media Literacy Message Reduce Negative Media Exposure Effects Amongst Adolescent Girls?", Emma Halliwell, Alice Easun, and Diana Harcourt design an experiment in which they tested whether or not watching a video revealing the artificial nature of media images prevented girls from feeling body dissatisfaction when exposed to media with the thin-ideal. In the study, a sample of one hundred twenty-seven girls between ten and thirteen years old participated. A portion of the girls were shown Dove's "Evolution" video showing the process of a model being edited on Photoshop and clearly stating the before and after pictures. Following this, they were shown an advertisement from a magazine of two young girls in bikinis and high heels. In result, the girls who were not shown the Evolution video had lowered body satisfaction and lowered self esteem, whereas the girls who did see the video had none of these negative responses (Halliwell, Easun and Harcourt 397). These results show that simply being exposed to one photo can have a huge effect on a young girl. Teaching impressionable girls at this young of an age that being unrealistically thin is beautiful can be dangerous because it can lead to depression, low self esteem, and eating disorders. If video's like Dove's "Evolution" were more commonly and widely produced, there could be less body dissatisfaction among young women which could allow them to focus on more important things in life. 

In the past few decades, with the influence of mass and social media, women have been led to believe that what they weigh determines their worth. There have been numerous studies that prove this is a serious problem in countries all over the world effecting girls ranging from nine years old to adult women. Although there are more plus sized models today than there were ten years ago, the unattainable ideals that are portrayed in movies, television, and advertisements are still very prominent. The effect that media has on men and women create unrealistic expectations from men, and cause women to objectify themselves. Overall, mass media is harmful to the body image of women and helps confirm stereotypical gender roles. 

