freelance journalist, print journalist, online journalist, copywriter, content editor, freelance editor, health and lifestyle, blogger Why models with perfect bodies will never be out of a job | Christine Morgan - Journalist
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Judging by  how many people say they’re unhappy with their body or appearance – at least, according to all the surveys, that is – you might wonder why we torment ourselves almost daily by exposing ourselves to impossibly perfect images of thin models and celebrities both in magazines and on TV. Surely it just makes us even more unhappy with what nature gave us?

Well that’s what researchers writing in the journal Media Psychology thought too, so they decided to investigate. And by carrying out an experiment that measured how long people looked at such images in an online magazine, they discovered we actually avoid looking at those images. Unless they are accompanied by editorial on how to get a similar body, that is.

So here’s how it worked in the experiment. The people who said they weren’t happy with the way they look spent about 50 percent more time looking at the models’ bodies when there was accompanying editorial about body improvement compared to when the editorial was more general.

The volunteers who said they were happy with their appearance spent the same time looking at the images whatever the editorial content, however.

It may explain why fitness and beauty magazines are so popular, the researchers claim. We’re apparently happy to torture ourselves by looking at unattainable physical ideals as long as there’s a feature alongside the images that says we too can look like that (even though, I suspect, deep down we know we can’t).

Human psychology – fascinating, isn’t it?