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A content analysis of 28 different prime-time television situation comedies examined the body weights of 52 central female characters (88% White, 10% Black, 2% Asian), the verbal comments they received from other characters as a function of body weight, and their self-comments with respect to their own body weight, shape and dieting behaviors. Compared with the general population, below average central female characters were over-represented in situation comedies; above average weight characters were under-represented. Below average weight female characters received significantly more positive verbal comments from male characters with regards to body weight and shape than their heavier counterparts. Dieting female characters gave themselves significantly more verbal punishment for their body weight and shape than those less involved in dieting. This combination of modeling the thin ideal and the verbal reinforcement associated with this modeling likely contributes to the internalization of the thin ideal and may put some young female viewers at risk for developing eating disorders.
Older children and young adolescents spend almost 25% of their awake time watching television (four hours per day; e.g., Liebert & Sprafkin, 1988). Therefore, television has the potential to create and reinforce particular social values, stereotypes and behaviors as well as alter young viewers' perceptions of reality (Liebert & Sprafkin, 1988; Sipiora, 1991). One area of recent concern has been the "ideal" female body attractiveness stereotypes presented in television advertising and programming. For example, Ogletree, Williams, Raffeld, Mason and Fricke (1990) found that the vast majority (86%) of appearance enhancement advertisements on television target young female viewers. In 1980, Kaufman reported that relatively few prime-time TV characters were overweight (12%) and under-represented the proportion of overweight individuals in the general population; six years later, Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson and Kelly (1986) found that 5% of female TV characters were rated as "heavy," whereas 69% of female characters were rated as "thin." This suggests a trend towards an increasingly thinner stereotype of the female body on television.
Exposure to these stereotypes likely models and reinforces the association between thinness in women and characteristics such as physical attractiveness, desirability, personal self-worth, and success (Garner, Garfinkel & Olmstead, 1983). It has been suggested that this may lead some young women to internalize the thin ideal stereotype and form a distorted mental...
