Study: Magazines hurt girls' images
BOSTON (AP) - Even a magazine editor admits that skinny models featured on
covers can make teen girls dissatisfied about their body image. "Young
girls reading magazines certainly compare their bodies to the models that
they see in there and come away with sometimes unhappy feelings with the
way they look," Glamour executive editor Stephanie Dolgoff said Monday. But
she said women's magazines are being unfairly singled out by a new study
that criticizes publications for feeding an unhealthy body image to young
girls - as if teens can't "discern between what's fantasy and what's
reality." According to the study, published in the March issue of the
journal Pediatrics, more than two-thirds of girls in grades five through 12
said magazine photos influenced their notion of the ultimate figure.
Forty-seven percent said they wanted to lose weight because of those
pictures. Only 29% of the 548 girls interviewed were actually considered
overweight. ###
