Women's Body Image in Advertising

     One of the main things I picked up in the lecture was that the issue with body image originated from Europeans migrating to America and Europeans in general. For some reason, I had never seen body image as something that originated from Europeans, and I saw it as interesting, although I am not sure what I would add to it. I remember someone discussed that when you look at paintings from the Renaissance era, most women aren't skinny and have, as some people would say, "meat on their bones." That was considered beautiful at the time. We must realize that many cultures have different beauty standards; for example, a Chinese custom in which women break their feet to look a certain way is considered a status symbol and beautiful. Looking closer at America, the beauty standard is just that; what is considered 'normal' for a woman living in this country. And of course, it goes through phases, including what the trends are. Some of us aspire to different standards, and many girls never fulfill their ideal standards for themselves. In the early 2000s, it was popular to be extremely thin and have big boobs. In the mid-2010s, the BBL came into play, and all beautiful girls had big, round asses accompanied by proportionate thighs. But at the same time, you had to have a flat stomach and big boobs. These standards change so often that it is virtually impossible for any girl or woman to always feel beautiful and fulfilled, and many times, it's made us go to extremes to try to fit the bill. It was not until recently that plus-size models became the norm, and even then, they usually show specific measurements and body types of plus-sized people. Overall, I think that we are progressing while also creating more problems as technology advances and society becomes more accepting of what “normal” is for people's body types.