Then and Now

Today at work while rummaging through some random boxes, I came across a treasure chest of hidden goodies, vintage Cosmopolitan magazines from the 1980s and early 1990s. I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to do a little side-by-side comparison of our most current issue and one I found from January 1985.

Nice hair gurl.

Might as well start with the cover. The January 1985 cover features the lovely Elle Macpherson, I’m not too sure if this was before or during her supermodel prime, but interestingly enough there is no mention of her on the cover. Splashed all over the current issues are headlines like “Selena Gomez, Secrets behind her megastar success” and “Megan Fox, naughty or nice? You decide.” In the most recent decades, we have developed an obsession with celebrities and their lives. My explanation to this is because we see them as living in a parallel universe to ours- we fail to remember they are real people because of the money, power, and fame they have, and our lives just look dull and booorrrring in comparison. Sucks to suck. But we gotta deal with it.

March 2012 Cover

 Also different to note is the cover headlines. We have this little joke where we talk about whether a girl or guy is “Cosmo worthy” or whether they are “Cosmo material” when questioning if we should place them in the magazine. There is a definite shift in the kinds of celebrities that were placed in the magazine back in the day to the celebrities that are placed in the magazine today.  In 1985, when this issue had a full length story about Jane Fonda, she was 48 (I did the math). Today, there is no way in hell that anyone over the age of 35 would ever be placed in Cosmopolitan. Have you seen the January and February 2012 covers? Teen central … Dakota Fanning and Selena Gomez… they are both barely 18.  I remember the first time I read Cosmopolitan magazine at the ripe age of 15, and to be honest I had no idea what half of the stuff they were talking about was.  There has been a definite shift in the target audience for the magazine, they claim we target ages 18-34, but I know for a fact we have little 13 year old tweens running around reading the “2012 Sex Survey.” That’s an issue. In a previous post, I mentioned that girls as young as 9 and 10 are in fact reading these magazines. Not okay.

Whilst entertaining myself on the internet during a terribly boring physics lecture a while ago, I found a photo that captures, in a satirical manner, what women’s magazines are impressing upon us. The focus of today’s women’s magazines is on how to have better sex, please “your man”, and lose weight, all while supposedly “empowering” us to be fun, fearless females. Personally, I think we need to find a new way to be empowered because this crap ain’t cutting it. 

Men have issues too?!

I don't hate it.

I have been focusing this blog on the effects of magazines on women, how the images published lead to heightened body dissatisfaction and well as eating disorders, BUT I haven’t discussed whether or not they affect men. I have a decent amount of guy friends, and they all claim they don’t understand why girls watch what they eat, why we are so self conscious, blah blah blah. But, what I have found is that guys are actually self-conscious too. A few days ago I was talking to a couple of my guy friends about their upcoming spring break trip to Cabo. They actually revealed to me that they have been working out more, watching what they eat, and drinking less alcohol to prepare look good in a swimsuit and tone up their “Cabo bodies.” In fact they have coined their new regimen, the “Cabo diet.” Mind you, it ain’t looking too promising for them anyway, sorry about it.  After that I started to think more about this, when I am at the gym, the majority of the inhabitants are males. Mind you I hate the gym just for this reason. Ladies, ever gotten approach by some sweaty dude at the gym tryna chat you up and get your number? Like seriously, every single treadmill is open but you choose the one RIGHT next to mine and stare at me until I make awkward eye contact with you so you can strike up a conversation?! Smart girls stay away from the gym solely for this reason.   

Lookin' a little wax figure-ish to me.

Anywaayyy, I decided to research this a bit and get some more information, do magazines effect men like they do women? In a more general study in the Review of General Psychology regarding gender differences, men scored and rated themselves significantly higher in terms of physical appearance, athleticism, personal self, and self-satisfaction self-esteem. But other research shows that men aren’t necessarily concerned with size and weight like predicted, but rather other issues such as body odor, body hair, and sweating. A study published by the San Francisco State University found that the more media young men engaged in, such as magazines and prime time TV, the worse they felt about their bodies. It makes sense. Think of Abercrombie & Fitch ads, the model’s head might be cut off in the photograph, but it doesn’t even matter, his abs are as chiseled as a granite statue. So the magazines and billboards might not display men as stick thin like they do women, but rather hairless, sleek, and built. That is a lot to live up to if you are just an “Average Joe.” Magazines are even known for airbrushing men. On a 2007 cover of Men’s Fitness Andy Roddick was pictured with much larger arms than usual, a cover headline splashed next to him saying “How to Build Big Arms.” That’s got to be false advertising or something. Let’s get real, the dude plays tennis, he’s not a body builder. There is no way his arms are that jacked. So it seems like guys really do face some of the issues that women do, whether they let onto it or not.

Eating Disorders

Let’s get down to business; America has got a lot of problems. Obesity rates are rising and are currently at an all time high. In fact, 30% of children and 65% of adults are overweight and 15% of children and 30% of adults meet the criteria for obesity. It has gotten so bad that people now refer to it as an “obesity crisis.” We are a society obsessed with convenience and accessibility; today we work more and have less free time than we did 30 years ago, that doesn’t leave much time for healthy eating. America, gluttonous?! Neveeerrr. 

At the same time, eating disorder rates are rising as well. Eating disorders affect more than 10 million people in the United States alone. Disorders include anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and excessive exercise. Joel Yager once said, “Every society has a way of torturing its women, whether by binding their feet or by sticking them into whalebone corsets. What contemporary American culture has come up with is designer jeans." A little dramatic Joel, but I get it.  To be honest, it is pretty surprising that the rates of obesity in America as so high, especially with so much emphasis being put on healthy eating, dieting, and exercise. But once again we are directed back to that same statement I say in basically every post, magazines publish images of perfection unattainable (literally, they are airbrushed) by an average person. What’s more interesting to me is that is isn’t the typical women’s magazines like Glamour, Elle, and Cosmopolitan that are correlated with eating-disorders, it is actually the fitness magazines like Shape, Self, and Women’s Fitness. For once the magazine I work for isn’t causing more harm than good??? Actually, that’s a lie, studies also show that the whole “thin is in” kind of thing perpetuated in typical women’s magazines isn’t having that great of an influence on girls either. 

Way to be a role model, McPhee.

I found a pretty interesting article regarding fitness magazines and eating disorders. Katie Dummond writes fitness magazines are, “like heroin for the eating disordered. They often offer misleading diet information, along with airbrushed photos of impossible physical ideals, and perpetuate ugly myths about how health ought to look.” So what was kind of surprising was that Shape decided to put Katharine McPhee on their cover…twice, a woman who had openly confessed to suffering from bulimia. Seriously Shape, you gotta be kidding me. Now that is hypocrisy at its finest. After suffering from bulimia, you would think McPhee would be more sensitive to readers and wouldn’t want to bolster that same impracticable physical ideal. Honestly, what an awful message to send. Yah, her body looks banging on the cover, but how did she get that way? Was purging after meals part of the routine? I don’t want to rag on her too much, but that is pretty shameful on both her and the magazine’s part. Even worse, I literally just Googled to find a picture of her Shape cover only to find she’s on the cover of Self, THIS MONTH (March 2012). What a fucking coincidence. Girl needs to get off those fitness magazines.  Where are the role models in this world, ugh.

Self March 2012 cover