The essay “Fat is an Advertising Issue” by Susie Orbach details her workings with the Unilever Company and Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.” It talks about the harmful effect that advertising can have on women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Today’s advertising affects women and young girls in a negative manner by distorting their idea of what is truly beautiful and lowering their self-esteem.
Modern day advertising is filled with beautiful women. For most of the female population, this type of model beauty is unobtainable. I say this because cosmetic, clothing, and many other types of companies go through a long process of handpicking their models for their advertisements. The women in their ads are as skinny as possible, have beautiful features, eyes, skin and hair. If there is anything about them that isn’t quite up to their standards, it is computer edited to be just that. Through this process, companies create a sort of “ideal woman” figure that is seen as superior to all other women because they can’t compare to her unequaled beauty.
Seeing the beautiful girl in the makeup commercial or the clothes model on the billboard can make anybody feel like they are not as attractive. Ads containing these unrealistic ideas of beauty cause virtually all women and young girls to have very low self-esteem. Some will do almost anything for a shot at being as beautiful as the “that girl.” Fifty percent of young girls will engage in unhealthy eating disorders or harmful behavior such as cutting themselves, drinking, or drug use. These are all negative effects of the subliminal pollution that we see in everyday advertising.
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