NYC-Feature Story

Not a Pretty Picture
Girls' magazines are too obsessed with looks

By Rasheeda Raji

I’m 19, and have read teen magazines like Seventeen and YM for years. When I open up these magazines, I have a hard time finding someone who looks less than exquisite.

It isn’t necessarily true that they’re all naturally stunning; the picture may have been airbrushed or otherwise enhanced to make them appear flawless. But even those of us who know this are still drawn in by the models’ clear skin and glistening lips.

In a society where so many people are consumed with thoughts about how they look, these magazines aren’t beneficial. Instead, they help make a woman’s confidence sink lower and lower. The women in magazines are falsehoods; they leave many girls hoping to have skin, hair and bodies that they can never attain.

Studies show that the media reinforce women’s low self-esteem about their bodies. For example, a mid-’90s study in the British Journal of Psychiatry showed that some anorexics and bulimics overestimate their size after looking at fashion magazines.

How to Look Like Halle, Britney and Janet

I’m not blaming magazines totally for the way that women and teenage girls look at themselves. I fault them more for not helping the situation by continually providing “perfect” images to our appearance-obsessed society.

These magazines imply that girls aren’t pretty enough by constantly emphasizing that we need to put makeup on so we can look like female celebrities.

For example, in the March 2002 issue of CosmoGirl!, young ladies who may already have trouble accepting themselves as is are given advice on how to recreate the hairstyles and makeup of Janet Jackson, Britney Spears and Halle Berry. Other articles spotlight J. Lo’s and Shakira’s clothing essentials and how to have lashes like Destiny’s Child.

CosmoGirl! also runs more meaningful stories; a recent article on the lives of female athletes seemed like it was meant to inspire girls. But the majority of the magazine is filled with articles that are more concerned with how girls can give their eyes a more dramatic look.

YM follows a similar formula. In its March 2002 issue, a college girl gets a makeover. There’s nothing wrong with getting a new style, but the way the magazine flatly says that she looked “boring” before suggests that there was something wrong with her prior to the makeover. She looked fine before; she just wasn’t smiling like a Cheshire cat, which is how she looks after the makeover.

Serious Articles Lost In the Back

Even more exasperating is Seventeen magazine. The March 2002 issue has an interesting article on friends dealing with racial tension, but it’s easy to forget that when there are five times as many articles written about things like Mandy Moore’s new look.

These beauty tips are excessive, especially the eight-page spread on how to wear your hair to dinner, to a concert, to prom, etc. The articles that captivate the mind are pushed toward the back of the magazine, where they’re lost among more cosmetic ads and prom fashion spreads.

With so many stories that insist you’d be pretty if you just used foundation, it’s no wonder that many girls have distorted images that cause them to carry insecurities throughout their lives. Many females don’t believe that it’s OK to be pleasantly plump. They find it necessary to go on crazy diets, have tummy tucks, or throw up their food with the hope that they can be as thin as a rail.

What’s even more troublesome is that as a teenage girl grows into a woman, she’ll be exposed to the same image-obsessed articles she dealt with in the teen magazines.

I sit looking through Redbook, a magazine geared for woman over 20, disturbed by its headlines “Want to drop 5 lbs? 10? 15?” and “Get Prettier Quicker.” I feel uneasy that someone may think their happiness is depends on looking as slender and pretty as the women that appear in the magazines.

Looked for Girls With Curves

After noting this situation, I conducted a search to look for any girls with curves. I went through the current issues of YM, Seventeen and several issues of CosmoGirl! looking for a girl who had an average body size.

I was looking for someone who looked close to a size 14, the average size for American women. The clothing that the size 0-4 models are wearing just won’t work for someone who has a butt or boobs.

My search was pretty unsuccessful. I only saw girls who looked obviously meatier in a few pictures that accompanied the serious articles and in Seventeen as part of a prom fashion spread.

Magazines Have To Sell Ads

Why is it that so many magazines are geared toward the way a person looks? I suppose that since their ad pages are filled with cosmetics companies like Maybelline and Revlon, appearance is what they’re attempting to sell.

If readers feel like they have to look prettier, they’ll buy more makeup, which means they’re giving money to the makeup companies. The more successful a company, the more ads they can choose to place in a magazine. (Corporate magazines stay afloat through the money they make from selling ads.)

But I think the culture of emphasizing beauty over inner worth needs to be changed. With a targeted market of young women who are already insecure, writers, editors and
publishers should create more balanced publications that encourage girls to have a healthy spirit and develop the inside.

They should be concerned with promoting social awareness and healthy ways to view the female form. Tips on how to use eyeliner should be replaced with ways to improve your
community, or extracurricular activities that you might enjoy.

YM Takes Stand

Even though publishers’ jobs are to make money in the end, I don’t think their profits and success are worth the emotional distress that many young women feel about their bodies after reading these articles.

One editor has decided to take a stand. Apparently recognizing her magazine’s overemphasis on appearance, the new editor-in-chief of YM, Christina Kelly, says that as of the April issue 2002, dieting columns will no longer appear in YM. Addition-ally, plumper models will be featured in the magazine.

Still, there are teens who believe that the magazine shouldn’t change its format to please “the fat.” In a recent YM online discussion group, many thin teenage girls asked, “What’s wrong with being thin?” And others felt that the dieting advice was helpful in their pursuits to gain a thinner body.

Can’t Be Bothered With Beauty Tips

But I believe dieting advice should be given by doctors and nutritionists. Impressionable teens shouldn’t be exposed to weight loss articles, particularly since most diets don’t work. I’m happy about YM’s decision and wish other publications would follow suit.

I can’t say what’s made this world such a shallow place where vanity is given the utmost importance in so many magazines. But I do know I’m not a slave to what the media presents as beautiful and fashionable when it comes to shaping my appearance.

I find it too time consuming to try to make myself beautiful the way magazines say I should. I don’t have the motivation to work so hard at being pretty because I don’t think that’s going to guarantee me happiness.

So I wear what’s comfortable for me, which is usually a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt and Timberlands. I don’t wear makeup, and probably never will. I have days when I wish I were skinny, but that usually passes when I have a craving for cinnamon buns. I’m becoming content with the way I am, and I don’t want any magazine telling me I shouldn’t be.