No longer just a pretty face: Fashion magazines' depictions of ideal female beauty from 1959 to 1999

Abstract
Objective: The print media's depiction of the ideal of feminine beauty as presented to American women was examined for the years 1959–1999.Method: Trends were investigated through an analysis of cover models appearing on the four most popular American fashion magazines.Results: Body size for fashion models decreased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s. There was also a dramatic increase in the frequency with which the media depicted the entire bodies of the models from the 1960s to the 1990s.Discussion: Both the increasingly thin images and the striking increase in full‐body portrayals suggest an increase in the value placed by American society on a thin ideal for women, a change that is concurrent with the increase in disturbed eating patterns among American women. © 2004 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 36: 342–347, 2004.

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