Body Image & Consumer Behavior

Body image has become a really sensitive topic in the past few years and it's at a point where it has escalated too far. Little girls should not have to worry about what their bodies look like. They should be having fun outside instead. As Americans, we consumer so much more media than we did a decade ago and that's effecting children and adults too. Children specifically are using observational learning when looking at ads of skinny models. If they see skinny models everywhere they will start to think that that's the only way.

Recently I've been seeing body image as a trending topic on the news. I remember hearing that some studies show that children as young as 5 are saying that they have issues with their bodies. I thought the world was starting to make progress with the body positive movement. I have some articles below that share this rising trend. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/europe/uk-london-bans-negative-body-image-ads/

http://motto.time.com/4378414/blogger-tiffany-brien-stomach/

As consumers, we are very influenced by what we see. Marketers know this and will play this to our weakness. Having fresh pizzas out on display means you're more likely to buy one. Same goes for body imaging. If you are on your favorite online store and see a woman that is your size modeling the clothing, you're more likely to consider it for yourself rather than if a smaller sized woman was wearing it.

I think that America has a lot of work to do when it comes to body images. We have bans on cigarette ads being near schools, but why not ban body shaming ads from children television networks? Hopefully, we will keep moving towards body positivity!