Final Major Project Proposal by Olivia Watson

Final major project proposal C3496523 Olivia Watson Word Count: 946

Introduction For my Final Major Project I want to focus and explore the change of women’s body image and the impact of editorial magazines. We, as a society, are bombarded with having beautiful, slim-figured women gracing the cover of magazines all around us whether it be a fashion, lifestyle, health and fitness or reality magazine, it is inevitable that the women on these magazine covers are the ones that young girls and women aspire to look like. Flauta (2016) believes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and that this beholder should not be society, but in today’s society it takes control of how women and young girls perceive themselves. I have chosen to explore this change because being a young woman myself, I know by having friends and people around me that are affected by these everchanging idealistic body images that editorial magazines can be a huge part of this effect, and not just physically, but mentally as well.

1950s to Present Day For this project I will focus and look at the ‘idealistic body image’ of the 1950s to the present day. The 1950s because the bombshell of the decade, Marilyn Monroe was seen as the most beautiful woman in the world at that time, and looking at today’s most beautiful women, a lot of people would refer to a Victoria’s Secret Model gracing the catwalk and covers of Vogue, ELLE and Marie Claire. In an article by Howard (2018), she explains about how editorial has had an impact from as early as the 1920s with women and their bodies, however the most distinct of these body images does start with Marilyn in the 1950s and the birth of Playboy magazine in 1953, where the desire for body types of pinup girls and actresses grew in popularity (Howard, 2018). However this pinup girl look was not long lasting as the 60s saw the rise of supermodel Twiggy who opted for a more thinner body along with other slender models and this filtered through to the 70s, resulting to an incidence of severe anorexia requiring hospital admission. The 80s then saw a different body image rise, ‘the athletic body’ which supermodels such as Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell would showcase on the catwalks and magazine covers. Until the 90s saw that, according to Howarth (2018), anorexia had led to an all-time high and models such as Kate Moss were promoting what society called ‘the waif ’ look, that of pale complexions and gaunt looks, also linked to the grunge music era (Hart, 2015), that made its way into the 2000s and still causes mental illness of women and young girls today.

Body image and Mental Health Unfortunately, “only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media.” (Style Sprinter, 2015). In the 20th century, women did not have statistics like this to allow them to know not everyone will look and can look the same. Not everyone can have the athletic figure of an 80s supermodel or the petite slender figure of Twiggy in the 60s, hence why anorexia nervosa fluctuated throughout the decades as a result of the body shape that was currently ‘in fashion’. However findings from Swaitkowski (2016) find a difference relating to mental health within fashion magazines and health and fitness magazines: fashion magazines are linked with body dissatisfaction while health and fitness magazines are linked with a desire to be thin. Whether you have the desire to be tin or you are unhappy with your body, these images of women that these magazines promote to us are unrealistic and do affect people daily. In a study by Tigeemann et al (2017), there have been many arguments for bringing disclaimer labels into editorial magazines to allow the readers that the images being portrayed have been digitalised. Fashion and beauty magazines, in particular, have been identified as a potent source of unrealistic thin ideals (Harper and Tiggemann, 2008, Kilbourne 1994). How are the readers of these magazines allowed to believe that these images that they see plastered everywhere are what the ‘ideal body’ should be?

Spoiled Nation With the content that has already been put into Spoiled Nation, I thought that this would be an interesting mixture of that; fashion, mental health, touch on music and society’s view on body image. Gathering images from each decade and being visually able to see the changes in women’s body image and talk about each era as I find it fascinating how each decades whole style could change in the mere space of 10 years. What you see in a lot of magazines is a survey to discuss and back up the point or story that is being told, I want to survey a group of girls and get their opinion on which era and body image would be their ideal because everyone has a different opinion on what the ‘ideal body image’ is. This will be more of an opinion piece as I want to get the opinion of other people on the topic of the idealistic body image as I believe a lot of young women will have different ideas of what that is.

Body image is such hot topic in society and has been for decades, no one can escape editorial magazines showing off the top payed models today and their effortlessly incredible figures, or scrolling through social media and coming across endless pictures of these said models and even more women posing and showing off their bodies. That is what this project will be focused on, the everchanging women’s body image and editorial magazines impact on women in society’s views on their body image.

Bibliography • Hart, M. (2015). See How Much the “Perfect” Female Body Has Changed in 100 Years (It’s Crazy!). [Online] Greatist. Available at: https:// greatist.com/grow/100-years-womens-body-image [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].

• Howard, J. (2018). The history of the ‘ideal’ woman and where that has left us. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/07/ health/body-image-history-of-beauty-explainer-intl/index.html [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].

• Rosary Flauta, M. (2016). Editorial: The “Perfect Body” Image Is Not What You See In Magazines. [Online] The Torch. Available at: <https://lhstorch.com/1640/opinions/editorial-the-perfect-body-image-is-not-whatyou-see-in-magazines/> [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].

• Senic, N. (2011). Producing a Custom Magazine? Follow These 6 Content Marketing Steps. [online] Content Marketing Institute. Available at: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/08/6-steps-for-producing-acustom-magazine/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2019].

• Style Sprinter. (2015). How Magazines Affect Body Image Perception?. [Online] Available at: https://stylesprinter.com/how-magazines-affect-your-body-image-perception/ [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].

• Swiatkowski, P. (2016). Magazine influence on body dissatisfaction: Fashion vs. health?. Cogent Social Sciences, [Online] 2(1). Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2016.1250702> [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].

• Tiggemann, M., Brown, Z., Zaccardo, M. and Thomas, N. (2017).

“Warning: This image has been digitally altered”: The effect of disclaimer labels added to fashion magazine shoots on women’s body dissatisfaction. Body Image, [Online] 21, pp.107-113. Available at: <https:// ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/S1740144512000952/1-s2.0S1740144512000952-main.pdf?_tid=a24df003-692c-4f9c-87b7-c25dddb8bea3&acdnat=1546511808_c3af06801ca51e832c5d8c02d511ae57> [Accessed 3 Jan. 2019].