Books on Body image

I read two books as part of my primary research: one called 'Body Image' By Sarah Rogan - Understanding body dissatisfaction men, women and children. This book helped me to learn more about what body image is according to the book Fisher 1990 said it is 'a persons perception, thoughts and feelings about his or her body'. This book contains research carried out in Britain and America therefore is more valid as it contains British perspective aswell as American. It contains various perspectives from psychology, sociology, women's studies and media studies. In section 5 of the book it says Media effects on body image, this helped me as it gave me information on the negative messeges that advertising conveys and also that advertising is very effective from a young age to even older ages. It says advertising creates body dissatisfactionfrom young children, from the age of 8 and upwards on their body image, this is more relevent in the western world, where body image is an important factor.

The second book I read was 'Advertising to children - Concepts and controversies' By M. Carole Macklin and Les Carlson. This book particularly helped me as it gave me a ideas about the ages that children believe adverts and the ages that advertising is more unrealistic to children. This helped me to carry out my primary research, as from the information provided on the ages of children, I tested children on ages that were relevant to my study. The research is carried out by the American academy of advertising. It said that advertisers are willing to spend large amounts on children, as they know the children's market is huge. According to Blatt, Spencer and Ward 1972, young children have little understanding of the persuasive intent of advertising, viewing it as informative, truthful and entertaining.

Studies were carried out to see if children are affected by advertising: Butter et al (1981) reported that 70% of his sample of 4 year olds and 90% of 5 year olds can tell the difference between a tv program and a commercial. He concludes that they are watching something different from a program but do not know that the intent of what they are watching is to invite them to purchase a product or a service.

Another study from this book was by Bever et al he said that after the age of 8, children no longer believe that commercials tell the truth. This is relevant to my topic as I wanted to carry out primary research on children who think advertising does affect them and I wanted to find out how this affects their body image.