The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The more television we watch, the more we prefer thin female bodies, according to study

2019-12-20T11:38:01.819Z


Watching television makes viewers prefer thinner female bodies, a new study shows.


  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
  • Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
  • Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)

(CNN) - Watching television makes viewers prefer thinner female bodies, a new study shows.

The scientists measured the relationship between television consumption and body preferences among people from several remote villages in Nicaragua.

While those who had very limited access to television preferred women with a higher body mass index (BMI), the researchers said in a statement, who often watched television preferred thinner women.

The researchers said this was because thinner women were more frequent on television.

The team of researchers, led by scientists from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, is calling for a better representation in the media of people of different shapes and sizes to reduce the pressure of aspiring to a "thin and ideal body."

"Television and advertising managers have a moral responsibility to use actors, presenters and models of all shapes and sizes and avoid stigmatizing larger bodies," said Lynda Boothroyd, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at Durham.

"There must be a shift towards a 'health in all sizes' attitude and the media have an important role to play in that," he said in a statement.

READ : This has changed the concept of the "ideal" woman throughout history

It is usually difficult to separate television from other factors such as nutrition, income and education when examining the ideals of the body, Boothroyd told CNN, but the specific conditions in these villages allowed the team to isolate television exposure.

The researchers said the results provide good evidence that television is affecting our vision of bodily ideals, driving body dissatisfaction and playing a role in the development of eating disorders and depression.

The 299 study participants normally did not read magazines or use the Internet, and none of them owned a smartphone.

Those who did have access to a television watched Latin soap operas, Hollywood action movies, music videos, police reality shows and the news, according to researchers.

Participants in the study completed a questionnaire about their ethnicity, education, income, hunger, language and exposure to television. They were then asked to rate the attractiveness of the images of female bodies with different shapes and body sizes.

However, Boothroyd told CNN that some participants were beginning to have access to smartphones when the study was coming to an end.

"The Internet is quickly becoming more important than television," Boothroyd said, adding that he would consider the influence of smartphones if he conducted a similar study in the area in the future.

In another study, researchers showed images of larger and thinner women to a group of participants who had little or no access to television.

"We discovered that after seeing these images, the ideals of the villagers' body adjusted in the same direction," said co-author Tracey Thornborrow, a professor of psychology at Lincoln University in the United Kingdom, and her preferences shifted to the way of the body that had been shown.

"Our findings clearly demonstrate that perceptions of attractiveness are very changing and are affected by what we are visually exposed."

This is the first time that scientists demonstrate a link between media representation and bodily ideals outside industrialized societies, according to the authors, and say that their work shows that what people think that what is attractive is very changing

"If there is something universal in the attraction, it is how flexible it is," Boothroyd said.

READ : Quito will no longer choose queen: the controversy of beauty reigns in Ecuador

The full results are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Boothroyd has obtained funds to run a media literacy education program in Nicaragua to make adolescents more resistant to media messages.

The cultural construction of the "ideal" body has changed over time.

Thousands of years ago, sculptures and works of art portrayed curvilinear and thick silhouettes.

More recently, at the end of the 20th century, thin and skeletal models filled the pages of fashion magazines. Now, well-trained butts are celebrated with “likes” on social networks.

Thinness

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-12-20

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-06T15:51:28.540Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.