One major stereotype: women should be pretty and men should be strong. At the age of six, about half of young girls believe that they should be thinner, and by the age of seven 25% of kids have begun dieting behavior. As an adult, 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies. How would these statistics change if young girls didn’t see things every single day promoting the idea of the “ideal body type”? A body type that only 5% of women actually have, by the way. …show more content…
What does this suggest to fat girls, or even just average sized girls? Girls who have buck teeth or frizzy hair or any other “unconventional” feature? Any girl who isn’t white? What about all of the girls in movies who undergo “marvelous transformations” from an average, normal looking girl to a hollywood stereotype and are suddenly hailed as the epitome of beauty? (A la The Princess Diaries and many other films.) If girls don’t see people who represent themselves in media then they will assume that their body type isn’t the norm and it should be