Advertising is a very powerful source of mass communications. It's able to reach just about everyone and affects people all around the world. Advertising fascinates me immensely, however it scares me just as much. Especially amongst younger women. This is because it creates such a negative view of how young women see themselves. I know too many girls that look around at h&m models, American Apparel, and runway models, etc. and then they pick at their bodies, searching for what's different from themselves and the models.
I know girls that obsess over calories, their weight, that don't eat, it's dangerous and it's because they see these skinny models all around and believe that's what they need to look like. It's scary to think that by girls just seeing these models, that they are convicted they need to ruin their bodies to look the same way.
I love however , that advertising also has the power to turn this around and companies are trying to do this. It started with getting fuller models and striving to get healthier models in photos and on the runway.
I love Dove's campain where they had women describe how they believed they looked to an artist and had another woman describe how she believed the first woman looked and the two portraits dramatically differed. Women found they were more beautiful than they believed. I think that advertising like these examples is a great step to rebuilding how women view themselves. It's great and it excites me that companies are realizing that they need to help change this view of how women view themselves and are helping through advertisement.
