Abstract
Abstract Advertising conveys an aesthetic model that seems to have a negative influence on young women. However, it is unclear whether the media are the cause, or only act as a reinforcement of disorders related to body image, such as those associated with eating behavior (anorexia or bulimia). This study measures the influence that advertising (measured by recall scores) during a television program has on women with eating disorders (anorexia or bulimia) compared to healthy women. Experimental study of exploratory nature performed on a sample of young women with eating disorders and a control group. The influence of advertising was estimated by recall scores, obtained after viewing a real television program, which included two commercial breaks containing two kinds of ads: body cult advertising (showing thinness or promoting it) and neutral advertising. Young women with eating disorders better recall advertisements showing thinness and products for weight loss and pay less attention to other types targeted at their age and gender group. Television advertising seems to be more of a reinforcement for these women who are already dissatisfied with their body, rather than a direct cause of their body image disorder.
Highlights
MethodsWe counted on the participation of a sample of young women selected from the patients in the eating disorders unit of the University Hospital in Badajoz, Spain
This study explores in depth the influence of advertising measured through recall with a group that is sensitive to suffering dissatisfaction with their body image, and with a control group of unaffected women
There were 22 women diagnosed with eating disorders and 9 undiagnosed women
Summary
We counted on the participation of a sample of young women selected from the patients in the eating disorders unit of the University Hospital in Badajoz, Spain. We included a group of women not diagnosed with any eating disorder. We chose an episode of Friends (approximately 25 minutes long) about the preparations for the wedding of one of the main characters with a plot that had no apparent connection with our research This television series was popular and has always been well received by the audience. It represents different profiles of men and women in accordance with their physical and psychological characteristics In this episode, we included two commercial breaks, each of about two minutes long containing nine advertising spots. The research assesses, in a controlled environment, the advertising impact of a group of advertisements according to their content (five differentiated categories) and to the health status of the audience (a group diagnosed with an eating disorder and a control group). We used them to reproduce the actual conditions of watching a television commercial break
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