Women, Weight, and Age: Social Comparison to Magazine Images Across the Lifespan

The finding that rates of body dissatisfaction in women remain relatively stable across the adult lifespan may be due to older women having fewer but heavier age-relevant comparisons in the media. To examine this, magazine images that depict women’s full bodies were coded for age, body size, and clothedness. Analyses suggest that overall, older women are not well represented in this medium. In addition, magazines aimed at younger women depict younger and thinner models than do those magazines with a larger percentage of older readers. Moreover, across magazines, younger models are thinner and less clothed than older models. Thus, larger body ideals portrayed in the media, in combination with increased weight with age, may contribute to similarities in body satisfaction over the lifespan. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, New York, NY, May 2006.