| Abstract [eng] |
Object: body image ideals in the media. Objective: to analyze body image ideals prevailing in different countries. Tasks: review theories, contributing to explanation of media‘s influence on one‘s eating behavior; analyze the moderators and mitigating factors of media‘s influence; review the historical development of body image ideals; analyze modern body image ideals prevailing in different societies; analyze body image ideals in the media; research body image ideals, prevailing in the Lithuanian TV series; compare body image ideals, prevailing in Lithuanian and foreign country’s TV series. Methods: analysis and generalization of related literature; quantitative content analysis of body image ideals portrayed in Lithuanian TV series; comparative analysis of body image ideals portrayed in Lithuanian and USA TV series. Having analyzed the wide scope of science literature, theories contributing to explanation of media’s influence on eating behavior were abstracted, and the conclusion that neither of them is capable of giving the complete explanation of the media’s influence on one’s eating behavior process was drawn. It is only explicit that media does influence our self-esteem and eating behavior as a result. Also, moderators capable of either mitigating or intensifying medias influence were pointed out, as well as mitigating factors, that can be used for reducing negative media influence on eating behavior. Review of the body image ideals throughout the history revealed significant differences as to what was considered an ideal body at the different points in time. Moreover, analysis made it clear that even in the modern world differences among body image ideals exist in different countries and regions. This allowed identifying the main factors conditioning different ideals in various cultures. Studies of body image ideals in the media in Lithuania, thus being anecdotal, suggest there is a tendency to portray very skinny ideals in popular magazines. Quantitative content analysis of Lithuanian TV series showed that female characters are to be portrayed more slender that male ones, and the main factors having to do with characters body build are marital status, presence/absence of children and age. Comparative analysis of body image ideals portrayed in Lithuanian and USA TV series revealed, that although in both countries female characters are likely to be smaller than average, and male characters – larger than average, it comes out that body image ideal in USA TV series tends to be smaller than in Lithuanian TV series. |
