你對自己的外形滿意嗎？……Stick thin models make women of all sizes feel bad about their bodies

South Beach Maxim girls pose at a Maxim Magazine party

If you thought that only women on the heavier side felt bad about their bodies after being bombarded with images of stick thin models, well then you better think again, for the affliction is common to all members of the fairer sex.

And, it doesn't take a week or a month or even a year for those negative feelings to set in, but only three minutes, a new University of Missouri-Columbia study has found.

"Surprisingly, we found that weight was not a factor. Viewing these pictures was just bad for everyone," said Laurie Mintz, associate professor in the MU College of Education.

"It had been thought that women who are heavier feel worse than a thinner woman after viewing pictures of the thin ideal in the mass media. The study results do not support that theory."

As a part of the study the researchers measured how 81 women felt about themselves, from their body weight to their hair, and then exposed some of them to neutral images, while others viewed models in magazine ads for one to three minutes.

The women were asked to evaluate themselves after seeing the images, and in all cases, the women who viewed the models reported a drop in their level of satisfaction with their own bodies.

The study suggests that the majority of women would benefit from social interventions aimed at decreasing the effects of the media.

The researchers now state that unlike past interventions that have targeted specific groups of women, such as those with pre-existing eating and body-image concerns, this study suggests that reducing the acceptance of mass media model images and trying to stop the social comparison process is important for helping all women.

"Most women do not go to a counselor for advice; they look to Seventeen or Glamor magazine instead. These unrealistic images of women, who are often airbrushed or partially computer generated, have a detrimental impact on women and how they feel about themselves," Mintz said.

如果你認爲只有較胖的女性看到纖瘦模特的形象後纔會大受“刺激”，那最好還是再想想，因爲幾乎所有女性都會因此而“煩惱”。

而且，密蘇里-哥倫比亞大學的一項最新研究發現，這種消極情緒不是一週、一個月甚至一年之後纔會產生，只需要三分鐘。

密蘇里-哥倫比亞大學教育學院的副教授勞裏·敏茲說：“令人驚訝的是，我們發現體重並不是一個影響因素，每個女性看到這些照片後都會產生消極情緒。”

“我們原本認爲，較胖的女性看到媒體上的纖瘦模特照後會比瘦一些的女性鬱悶。但研究得出的結果卻並非如此。”

研究人員首先讓81個女性對自己的體重、頭髮等身體部位進行評價，然後讓其中的一些人看較爲平常的照片，讓另一部分人用一至三分鐘看雜誌中的模特照。

之後，研究人員讓這些女性再次進行自我評價，結果發現，所有看了模特照的女性對自己外形的滿意度幾乎都有所下降。

研究表明，降低媒體效應的社會干預能讓大多數女性受益。

研究人員稱，過去的社會干預主要針對的是那些存在飲食和外形等問題的特殊女性羣體，而目前的這項研究表明，降低媒體中模特形象的接受度以及停止社會比較對於所有女性來說很重要。

敏茲說：“多數女性不向諮詢師進行諮詢，而是看《17歲》或《魅力》等此類的雜誌。這些不現實的女性形象通常都經過了（Photoshop中）噴槍工具的處理或部分由電腦生成，對於女性及女性的自我形象評價會產生不良影響。”