The Need for Media Regulation Policies on Body Matters

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Maria João
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/29170
• topic: Regulation Policies; Media; Body Image; Teenagers.

In contemporary societies media have been accused of eating disorders development, especially among young women, due to the stereotyped representation on thin bodies in advertising and to contents designed to promote thin body types within female audiences. A polemic question has been set forth, focusing on whether media body representations should be regulated, for an affirmative answer would imply dominant media power that is not consensual among authors. Due to the lack of consensus around issues of regulating media or promoting self-regulation on body representations, strong measures are yet to be taken by governments. Concerns focus on a twofold problem: obesity and eating disorders associated to excessive weight loss. Therefore, and departing from an analysis of media regulation experiences and policies in different countries around Europe, the aim of this research is to test media’s role in adolescents’ body image in order to assess the need for regulation within body related contents in media. Methods include testing media role in teenage girls’ body image self-evaluation and investment in a cross-sectional study with 625 girls. Results point to moderate media impacts on teenage girls’ body image with implications for media regulation.