How Does Media Exposure Affect Self-Esteem In Overweight And Underweight Women?
Overweight women’s self-esteem plummets when they view photographs of models of any size, according to a new study in Journal of Consumer Research. And underweight women’s esteem increases, regardless of models’ size. Authors Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University, the Netherlands), Thomas Mussweiler (University of Cologne, Germany), and Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) researched the ways individuals with different body mass indexes (BMIs) felt when they were exposed to thin or heavy media models. ‘Our research confirms earlier research that found that normal body mass index (BMI) females’ self-esteem can shift upwards or downwards depending on the model they are exposed to,’ the authors write. ‘Normal BMI females (with BMIs between 18.5 and 25) have higher levels of self-esteem when exposed to moderately thin models (because they feel similar to these models) and extremely heavy models (because they feel dissimilar to these models). However, they have lower levels of self-esteem w
