Body Image Campaigns and Their Effects: Victoria's Secret vs Dove

            Self love and feeling confident in your own skin has been very talked about in every form of media very heavily within the past few years. With that being said, of course companies as large as Victoria’s Secret and Dove would want to get in on it showing that everyone should love their own body. Dove hit the nail right on the head with gathering models of all different body types. This shows that the “model body type” that we all search is the body we already have. The message portrayed in the Dove campaign is a positive way to show girls to love their bodies no matter the shape, size or color, while Victoria’s Secret still used super thin, lighter skinned models, which doesn’t help the cause at all.

            The models that we see in the media play a very large role in how we perceive our own bodies. Everyone strives for the ideal body, aka the perfect Victoria’s Secret Angel body with the perfectly bronzed skin. Victoria’s Secret encourages that sexy look and with that, they pick models that have little to no body fat etc and people looking at those adds assume that that is what you should look like if you want to be sexy.  With that in mind, it can cause teens to hate the body and skin color that they have which could lead to things like anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Advertisements constantly portray an ideal and beautiful body for women as one that is thin (in many cases, extremely and/or unhealthily thin). When people see these images and then look at their own bodies, which are often times different from what is portrayed as ideal in the media, they begin to think that they aren't beautiful, are too fat, too pale, too whatever. This dissatisfaction with one's body image can lead to low self-esteem, and even depression. (Hausenblas et al., 2013) Having images and such like that drilled into our lives everyday, causes people to allow them to be body role models, which leads to a negative view on our own bodies. But when it comes down to the facts of it, only 5% of women in the world naturally posses the “ideal” body type. The media really needs to focus on displaying a healthy ideal body instead of just a thin one. This would cause to people to take the healthy way of getting the ideal body instead of harmful, unhealthy lengths to get the “perfect” body.

            Media plays a huge role in our lives, especially advertisements. We see advertisements hundreds of times a day whether it is on social media outlets, TV or even on the side of the road. With that being said, media is very influential over our everyday life and our thoughts. When these love your body campaigns came along, huge corporations such as Dove and Victoria’s Secret had to jump in. When it comes to Victoria’s Secret’s take on this, people were not happy and it took a lot of backlash. They company came out with a collection/campaign was titled “The Perfect ‘Body’” (pictured below) in 2014 that conveyed that completely incorrect message. All the models in the ad are very thin, tall, blonde or brunette and mostly have very light skin. Their body types are exactly the same, which just gives women another reminder of societies homogeneous standard of beauty. After receiving all of this backlash, VS came out with a love your body campaign to try and be like the Dove campaign. The Dove “Real Beauty Campaign” did everything right. They included models of all body types, skin color, age, height and hair color. This ad provides every one of all ages to see models in the media that look exactly like them. Seeing someone with the same body type, celebrating their body can make a teen or adult feel much better about how they view themselves. Instead of seeing someone that is extremely thin and nothing like yourself can cause self-hate; but seeing someone with the same body type as you in underwear campaigns loving themselves, can cause teens to appreciate the way they are rather than result to hating the way they look. The newer VS campaign featured models with different skin tones but they are all still extremely thin. They still completely missed the mark. They were still promoting that thin “perfect” body that they always have and didn’t help the issue of self-love whatsoever. Most companies just seem to be more interested in selling their products and the “perfect” body rather than being healthy and loving yourself as you are with your real beauty.

            Victoria’s Secret just feeds into societies beauty standards that lead people to go to unhealthy measures to achieve that “perfect body” and causes people to have eating disorders because they hate the way they look. Dove planted the idea in society’s heads that the ideal body type/image is the body type that you possess. You don’t need to go to such unhealthy measures to achieve that thin body type that Victoria’s Secrets shoves down our throats; your body is the ideal body. Media is such a powerful outlet that has a huge impact on our lives in everyway. The message portrayed in the Dove campaign is a positive way to show girls to love their bodies no matter the shape, size or color, while Victoria’s Secret still used super thin, lighter skinned models, which doesn’t help the cause at all.

Citations

Stampler, Laura. "Thousands of People Want Victoria's Secret to Apologize for 'Perfect Body' Ad." Time. Time, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

Vargas, Esther Lenicee. "The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image." - Applied Social Psychology (ASP). N.p., 18 June 2013. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

"11 Facts About Body Image." 11 Facts About Body Image. Do Something, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.