Angelina Lance
Slim Hopes: Advertising & Obsession with Thinness

The documentary “Slim Hopes: Advertising & Obsession with Thinness” by Jean Kilbourn talks about how female bodies are depicted in advertising images and the devastating effects it has on a woman's physical and psychological health. Media opinions make strong influences both culturally and individually. In the documentary Jean talks about the self esteem of young girls in America and how statistically it plummets when they reach adolescence, pointing out a shocking fact that one in ten young women have an eating disorder, most common being anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. She then points out that 11.3% of college women suffer from bulimia nervosa. Jean did a study where the findings showed that 80% of ten year old girls were already dieting. These results are absolutely shocking but, unfortunately very believable.

The media tells women over and over again that in order to be acceptable you need to be unnaturally thin. So thin, that it is actually impossible to diet to get to these body ideals. Only 5% of Americans actually have this body type naturally and yet it is the only kind being shown all over magazines and television. Leaving the other 95% of American women to believe that that is what they need to look like. Companies strive to make women believe that they can actually achieve it through diet, exercise, surgery or any other means when in all actuality they cannot. Unfortunately for us consumers, their lies are extremely profitable.

Profitable in so much that tobacco companies would peddle their products to children with the facade of cigarettes being a tool of beauty, just to make up for the consumers that they lose every year due to death because of the health risks associated with tobacco use. Their advertisements towards woman always show slim and slender women. They advertise to specifically bring a point across. A point of vanity. To make women believe anything is better than eating. Including smoking.

I find it to be so very sad but unfortunately very true all at the same time. I, myself, will admit that I shop for clothes that will focus on parts of my body that I like and hide parts of my body that I wish I could change. If it wasn't for the media portrayals I have been indoctrinated to worship, I'm not sure the self deprecating thoughts I feel at times would be as prevalent.

Slim Hopes: Advertising & The Obsession with Thinness. By Jean Kilbourne. Perf. Jean Kilbourne. Slim Hopes: Advertising & The Obsession with Thinness. Mef Challenging Media, 4 Oct. 2006. Web. 7 Dec. 2009. .