Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
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Body Image
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bodyimage
The effects of TV commercials using less thin models on young women’s
mood, body image and actual food intake
Doeschka J. Anschutz a,*, Rutger C.M.E. Engels a, Eni S. Becker a, Tatjana Van Strien a,b
a
b
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Institute for Gender Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 13 February 2009
Received in revised form 15 July 2009
Accepted 15 July 2009
This study experimentally tested the effects of exposure to television commercials using less thin models
on mood, body focused anxiety and food intake, as compared to the effects of commercials using thin
models. In a naturalistic setting, 110 young women were exposed to a neutral movie, interrupted by two
commercial breaks. The commercial breaks contained real commercials using either less thin (n = 32) or
thin models (n = 39), or neutral commercials (n = 39). During watching television, participants could
freely eat snack food. Further, their mood and body focused anxiety was assessed. ANOVAs revealed no
effects on body focused anxiety, but women reported a more negative mood and ate less after exposure
to commercials using less thin models than after exposure to commercials using thin models. These
results imply that using less thin models in commercials explicitly referring to the thin ideal does not
make women feel better.
ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
TV commercials
Less thin models
Thin models
Mood
Body focused anxiety
Food intake
Introduction
Exposure to thin ideal representations in the media is often
found to be related to body image and eating disturbance in
women (see for reviews Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008; Groesz,
Levine, & Murnen, 2002). The media contributes to the current thin
beauty ideal by providing examples of ‘attractive’ females (i.e.,
models, actresses, pop stars), that are used as a reference norm by
young women. Most studies on this topic have focused on
magazine influences and in general these mostly experimental
studies have found that women felt worse about their own body
after exposure to thin ideal images than when exposed to average
sized models or neutral images (e.g., Halliwell & Dittmar, 2005;
Posavac, Posavac, & Posavac, 1998; Stice & Shaw, 1994). Previously,
it has been found that the influence of television watching is
different from the influence of magazine reading on body image
(Tiggemann, 2003). The influence of average size models on body
image as compared to the influence of thin models was only
studied using still magazine images. It is important to examine this
relationship using television commercials, because people watch a
lot of television these days. Television commercials differ from
magazine advertisements is several ways, i.e., use of motion
* Corresponding author at: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University
Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Tel.: +31 24 3611818; fax: +31 24 3612776.
E-mail address: [email protected] (D.J. Anschutz).
1740-1445/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2009.07.007
pictures and storyline, so the effects of television commercial
exposure on body image might differ from the effects of magazine
exposure. Although women are probably more frequently exposed
to television than to magazines, very few studies examined the
effects of exposure to televised thin ideals on body image or eating
disturbance. Most of these studies used correlational designs (e.g.,
Bissell & Zhou, 2004; Schooler, Ward, Merriwether, & Caruthers,
2004; Tiggemann & Pickering, 1996), and have found that frequent
exposure to (thin ideal) television was related to higher body
dissatisfaction. Even more influential might be television commercials promoting beauty products and/or using thin models.
Advertising actually aims at convincing women to use the products
promoted by making a concrete link between the thin ideal and
means to achieve that for women themselves. In the present study,
we tested the effects of exposure to television commercials using
thin models on mood, body focused anxiety and food intake, and
compared these effects with the effects of exposure to commercials
for the same products but using less thin models.
Previously, two experimental studies examined the effects of
commercials featuring thin ideal models on young women’s body
image (Cattarin, Thompson, Thomas, & Williams, 2000; Heinberg &
Thompson, 1995). In both studies female participants in small
groups were exposed to either a compilation of thin ideal
commercials or a compilation of neutral commercials. In general,
the results showed that women who were already preoccupied
with their body, through high internalization of the thin ideal or
high body image disturbance had higher body dissatisfaction
scores after being exposed to the thin ideal commercials. In
D.J. Anschutz et al. / Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
addition, some studies used actual food intake as outcome measure
instead of body dissatisfaction. Strauss, Doyle, and Kreipe (1994)
showed women a sad movie interrupted by commercials with thin
women and diet-related products or neutral commercials. During
watching, the participants could freely eat chocolate-coated
peanuts. They were interested in the effects of restrained eating
(deliberately eating less in order to maintain or lose weight) on the
relation between thin ideal exposure and food intake. The results
showed that high restrained eaters exposed to the thin ideal
commercials ate much more than restrained eaters exposed to
neutral commercials or unrestrained eaters in both conditions.
These results were replicated by Warren, Strauss, Taska, and
Sullivan (2005). Further, Seddon and Berry (1996) found that high
restrained eaters ate more during a taste test following exposure to
thin ideal commercials as compared to unrestrained eaters. So,
restrained eaters seem to be disinhibited by commercials with thin
models and diet-related products.
However, opposite results were found by Anschutz, Van Strien,
and Engels (2008). In that study, a semi-naturalistic setting was
used, to increase the ecological validity. Participants were exposed
to a movie interrupted by either commercials with slim models
and diet-related products or neutral commercials, and meanwhile
they could freely eat from crisps and chocolate-coated peanuts.
The results showed that restrained eaters ate less when exposed to
the commercials with slim models and diet-related products than
when exposed to neutral commercials, whereas unrestrained
eaters ate slightly more when exposed to commercials with slim
models and diet-related products than when exposed to neutral
commercials. The difference in results between this study and the
previous studies finding disinhibition in restrained eaters after
exposure to thin ideal commercials might be explained by a
difference in the measurement of restraint. In the study by
Anschutz, Van Strien, et al. (2008), the Dutch Eating Behavior
Questionnaire (Van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares, 1986) was
used to measure restrained eating, whereas all three abovementioned studies used the Restraint Scale that is known for
selecting restrained eaters with a tendency to overeat (see Stice,
Ozer, & Kees, 1997; Van Strien, Herman, Engels, Larsen, & Van
Leeuwe, 2007). The findings of the study by Anschutz, Van Strien,
et al. (2008) indicate that restrained eaters might be inspired by
thin ideal commercials to stick to their diets. Self-enhancing effects
(feeling better about oneself) of exposure to thin ideal images were
found in restrained eaters in two studies (Joshi, Herman, & Polivy,
2004; Mills, Polivy, Herman, & Tiggemann, 2002). The authors
suggested that restrained eaters are susceptible to a ‘thinness
fantasy’, triggered by exposure to thin ideal images, in which they
believe to be thinner than they actually are. Still, it remains unclear
whether this so-called ‘inspiration’ in restrained eaters leads to
restriction of food intake (Anschutz, Van Strien, et al. (2008)) or
overeating (Mills et al., 2002), so further examination is needed. In
sum, the results of studies testing the effects of exposure to thin
ideal commercials on food intake show that restrained eating is an
important moderator in the relation between thin ideal media
exposure and food intake. However, the results on food intake are
somewhat conflicting, so further examination is needed.
Previous studies that tested the effects of thin ideal television
commercials on body image and food intake always compared
these effects with the effects of neutral commercials (e.g.,
promoting a car or cleaning product). So, no information is
available on the effects of television commercials featuring less
thin models as compared to the effects of commercials featuring
thin models. Nowadays, in Western society’s one beauty products
brand (Dove1) is explicitly using models with ‘realistic’ bodies, as a
response to the current thin beauty ideal women are bombarded
with by the media these days. However, it has never been tested
whether these commercials, using ‘realistic’ models and putting
271
the emphasis on thin ideal media negatively influencing women’s
body image, are actually related to improved mood or body image
and lower eating disturbance in women.
The main research question of the present study was to test the
effects of exposure to television commercials for beauty products
using less thin models (Dove1) on mood, body focused anxiety and
actual food intake, as compared to the effects of exposure to
commercials for similar types of beauty products using thin
models (Nivea1). An additional research question of the current
study was whether restraint would moderate the relation between
television commercial exposure and mood, body focused anxiety
or food intake. In line with the ‘inspiration theory’, it was expected
that restrained eaters would show a more positive mood and lower
body focused anxiety when exposed to commercials using thin
models than when exposed to commercials using less thin models
or neutral commercials. In contrast, unrestrained eaters were not
expected to be affected by the different types of commercials. Since
previous results regarding food intake are highly conflicting, no
specific hypotheses with respect to the effects of exposure to the
commercials on actual food intake were formulated. Apart from
restrained eating, thin ideal internalization was included as a
possible moderator between media exposure and mood, body
dissatisfaction or food intake. Because previous studies found
stronger effects of thin ideal media on body image in women with
high internalization of the thin ideal (e.g., Cattarin et al., 2000;
Dittmar & Howard, 2004; Halliwell & Dittmar, 2004; Heinberg &
Thompson, 1995; Levine & Murnen, 2009) it was expected that
women high in thin ideal internalization would feel worse and
have higher body dissatisfaction after exposure to commercials
using thin models compared to women low in thin ideal
internalization. No specific hypotheses with respect to food intake
were formulated regarding thin ideal internalization.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 110 female students from the Radboud
University Nijmegen. They participated in exchange for money or
course credits. The mean age of the participants was 20.05 years
(SD = 1.93) and their average body mass index (BMI = kg weight/m
height2) was 22.39 (SD = 2.83). Immediately after watching the
television clip, all participants were asked what they thought the
study purpose was. Seven participants turned out to be right about
the topic of the study (influence of the commercials on body image
and/or eating behavior and/or mood), so we concluded that our
participants in general were naı̈ve to the purpose of the study.
Exclusion of the seven participants who were right about the study
purpose did not at all change our findings. Therefore, the total
sample was used in our final analyses.
Procedure
All participants were tested individually. The participants were
told that the study investigated television viewing behavior at
home in general. We tried to create a setting as naturalistic as
possible, which resembled a home cinema. Participants could sit
on a comfortable couch and the movie, interrupted by commercial
breaks, was projected on the wall, using a good sound system.
Further, the room was decorated with accessories like plants,
paintings and lamps (cf. Anschutz, Engels, Becker, & Van Strien,
2008; Anschutz, Van Strien, et al., 2008). First, the participants
filled out a questionnaire assessing their pre-test mood. Next, they
were told that they would watch a movie-clip for about 30 min
that would be interrupted by two commercial breaks. They would
not need to try to remember anything in particular, but just had to
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D.J. Anschutz et al. / Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
act like they were watching television at home. A side table with
two pre-weighted bowls with crisps and M&Ms and a glass of
water stood in front of the participants. They were told that they
could eat whatever they liked from the crisps and M&Ms while
watching the movie. Subsequently, the experimenter started the
movie, turned down the lights and left the room.
The movie used for the movie-clip, ‘‘Travelling Birds’’, was
chosen for its neutral considered content. The movie was about
migratory birds and was relatively unknown to Dutch university
students (see also Anschutz, Van Strien, et al., 2008). After 5 and
20 min respectively the movie was interrupted by a commercial
break, containing one target commercial and four neutral
commercials (e.g., promoting a cleaning product or a home cinema
set). The neutral commercials did not contain any women, but they
did contain some (older) men in two commercials that did not play
a prominent role in the commercial but were present on the
background. The target commercials were promoting Dove1
products in one condition, and promoting Nivea1 products in
the other condition. The models used in these commercials were
average sized or slightly oversized in the Dove1 condition, but very
thin in the Nivea1 condition. The commercials were matched in
products and length over both conditions; the first commercial of
Dove1 and the matching Nivea1 commercial promoted shower
gel, and second commercial of Dove1 and the matching Nivea1
commercial promoted tanning lotion. The accompanying message
of the matching product commercials did not differ much between
the Dove1 and Nivea1 condition. The shower gel focuses in both
conditions on ‘freshness’ and the tanning lotion on ‘summer’ and
‘appearance’. However, the Dove1 commercials refer to using ‘real
women’ and focus more explicitly on the thin ideal than the
Nivea1 commercials. To get information about baseline scores on
mood, body focused anxiety and food intake, a neutral control
condition was included, in which the movie was interrupted by
two commercial breaks that consisted solely of five neutral
commercials. Hence, the participants were randomly divided over
three conditions; the Dove1 condition, the Nivea1 condition, and
the neutral control condition.
After watching the movie, the participants were asked to
complete questionnaires about their mood, body focused anxiety
and eating behavior. Next, their weight and height was measured.
Debriefing took place after the data collection had been completed.
Measures
Attitudes towards the movie
To investigate the attitudes of the participants towards the
movie, we presented them with four statements about the movie.
They were asked to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale (ranging from
1 ‘totally not agree’ to 5 ‘totally agree’) to what extent they
considered the movie interesting, boring, bad or nice. Cronbach’s a
was .86.
Commercial recall
Participants were asked to write down as many commercials
as they remembered. All correctly remembered commercials
(brand and product name) were summed to get a recall score for
each participant. In both experimental conditions recall of the
target commercials was distinguished from the neutral (filler)
commercials, to check whether the target commercials were
more often recalled than the neutral commercials (cf. Anschutz,
Engels, et al., 2008).
Commercial liking
For each remembered commercial participants could indicate
how much they liked that specific commercial, which enabled us to
assess what explicit attitudes the participants had towards the
commercials they remembered. They could rate the commercials
on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ‘totally did not like the
commercial’ to 5 ‘really like the commercial very much.’ Again,
liking of the target commercials was distinguished from liking of
the neutral commercials.
Hunger
Individual differences in hunger might influence food intake
(e.g., Polivy, Coleman, & Herman, 2005; Urbszat, Herman, & Polivy,
2002). Therefore, we controlled for individual differences in
hunger by presenting the participants after watching television
with a 14-cm VAS to establish the extent to which they had felt
hungry or satisfied before they entered the experiment ranging
from ‘very hungry’ to ‘not hungry at all’ (cf. Anschutz, Engels, et al.,
2008; Anschutz, Van Strien, et al., 2008).
Restrained eating
The restraint subscale of the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ; Van Strien et al., 1986) was used to measure
restrained eating. This subscale includes 10 items (e.g., ‘Do you
deliberately eat less in order not to become heavier?’), with
response categories ranging from 1 ‘Never’ to 5 ‘Very often.’
Cronbach’s a coefficient was .94. By a median split, participants
were divided into a low restraint and a high restraint group.
Thin ideal internalization
The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-III (SATAQ-3; Thompson, Van den Berg, Roehrig, Guarda, &
Heinberg, 2004) was used to assess thin ideal internalization. The
internalization subscale of this questionnaire consists of nine
statements. An example of a statement is: ‘I would like my body to
look like the people who are in the movies.’ Response options
ranged from 1 (‘‘totally disagree’’) to 5 (‘‘totally agree’’). Cronbach’s
a was .92. By a median split, participants were divided in two
groups scoring either low or high on thin ideal internalization.
Mood
To investigate whether exposure to the commercials caused
any differential mood states of the participants, we asked the
participants immediately before and after watching the movie to
indicate on a Visual Analogue Scales (VAS; 140 mm) to what extent
they felt ‘sad’ or ‘happy’ at that moment, with the scale ranging
from ‘Not at all’ to ‘Very much’. Good convergence of VAS assessing
mood was found with investigations of similar constructs (e.g., the
PANAS scales) (Heinberg & Thompson, 1995; Thompson, 2004).
Body focused anxiety
To assess participants’ state body focused anxiety we used the
Physical Appearance State and Trait Anxiety Scale (PASTAS; Reed,
Thompson, Brannick, & Sacco, 1991). Because we were only
interested in the weight related items and not in non-weightrelated body parts, we computed a weight related subscale of
seven items; the extent to which I look overweight, thighs,
buttocks, hips, stomach, legs and waist (see also Anschutz, Van
Strien, Becker, & Engels, 2009). Participants indicated how anxious
they felt about the different body parts at that moment, with
response categories ranging from 1 ‘not at all’ to 5 ‘very much.’
Cronbach’s a coefficient was .90.
Food intake
A total food intake score (in kcal) was computed for every
participant, by measuring the total amount of crisps and M&Ms the
participants consumed while watching television. The bowls with
crisps and M&Ms were pre- and post-weighed, using a professional
balance (Kern 200). We used total food intake in kilocalories as
dependent variable, since crisps and M&Ms differ in weight and
D.J. Anschutz et al. / Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
caloric value and therefore summing up the grams of crisps and
M&Ms eaten would not make sense (with 36% of the participants
eating both crisps and M&Ms).
273
ideal internalization in the relation between commercials exposure and mood, body focused anxiety and food intake.
Results
Strategy for analyses
Descriptives
First, means and standard deviations of all variables will be
given, sorted by condition. Using ANOVAs we checked whether
there were any differences between the commercial conditions on
the general attitudes towards the movie, commercial recall, or
commercial liking. Next, Pearson’s correlations between all
variables were calculated.
To test the effects of commercial condition (Dove1, Nivea1, or
neutral) on mood, body focused anxiety and food intake we used
analyses of variance. The first analysis tested the main effect of
commercial condition on sadness, controlling for pre-test sadness
using an ANCOVA. Regarding happiness the same analysis was
conducted, but with happiness as dependent variable and with
pre-test happiness scores included as a covariate. To test the effect
of commercial condition on body focused anxiety an analysis of
variance was conducted with commercial condition as independent variable and body focused anxiety as dependent variable. In
this analysis we controlled for BMI, since BMI correlated
significantly with body focused anxiety. To test the effects of
commercial condition on food intake, we performed an analysis of
variance with food intake as dependent variable and commercial
condition as independent variable. We did not control for BMI and
state of hunger, since both variables appeared to be uncorrelated to
food intake. In four additional analyses we tested the interaction
effects of commercial condition and restraint on mood (sadness
and happiness), body focused anxiety and food intake. Furthermore, four additional analyses tested the moderating effect of thin
Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of all variables.
Randomization seemed successful, since no differences were found
on BMI (F(2, 109) = 1.55, ns), hunger (F(2, 109) = 0.20, ns) and
restraint scores (F(2, 108) = 0.07, ns) of the participants between the
three commercials conditions. In addition, no differences were
found between the different commercial conditions on liking of the
movie (F(2, 109) = 0.98, ns) and liking of the remembered neutral
commercials (F(2, 97) = 1.24, ns). However, a significant difference
was found between conditions on the overall number of remembered commercials (F(2, 107) = 6.06, p < .01). Post-hoc testing
(Bonferroni) revealed that participants in the Dove1 condition
remembered significantly more commercials than participants in
the neutral commercial condition (p < .01), whereas no significant
differences were found between the Dove1 and Nivea1 condition or
the Nivea1 and neutral commercial condition on commercial recall.
Further, participants in the Dove1 condition reported higher liking
of the remembered target commercials than participants in the
Nivea1 condition, F(1, 59) = 5.69, p < .05. Pearson’s correlations
between all variables are shown in Table 2.
Mood
Sadness
The results showed that pre-test sadness scores were
positively related to post-test sadness, F(1, 106) = 178.33,
Table 1
Means (standard deviations) of all variables as a function of condition.
BMI
VAS hunger
Attitudes towards movie
Commercial recall
Liking of neutral commercials
Liking of target commercials
Restraint
Thin ideal internalization
VAS sad
VAS happy
Body focused anxiety
Food intake (kcal)
Dove1 ads (n = 32)
Nivea1 ads (n = 39)
Neutral ads (n = 39)
Total group
21.78
8.24
3.55
3.56
1.96
3.74
2.61
2.56
3.02
9.90
1.85
131.32
22.95
7.65
3.70
2.74
1.98
3.14
2.68
2.37
1.63
10.40
1.79
316.89
22.31
8.03
3.40
2.00
2.21
–
2.62
2.78
2.42
10.35
1.90
175.62
22.39
7.96
3.55
2.72
2.06
3.41
2.63
2.57
2.32
10.24
1.84
212.85
(2.28)
(4.12)
(0.85)
(2.12)
(0.69)
(0.87)
(0.87)
(0.76)
(2.24)
(1.69)
(0.77)
(146.10)
(2.93)
(4.12)
(0.95)
(1.90)
(0.75)
(1.06)
(0.82)
(0.84)
(1.39)
(1.59)
(0.61)
(471.76)
(3.08)
(3.87)
(1.03)
(1.64)
(0.68)
(0.92)
(0.86)
(2.02)
(1.66)
(0.77)
(212.95)
(2.83)
(4.00)
(0.95)
(1.97)
(0.71)
(1.01)
(0.86)
(0.84)
(1.96)
(1.64)
(0.71)
(325.25)
Table 2
Correlations between the model variables (N = 117).
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
*
**
***
BMI
VAS hunger
Attitudes towards movie
Commercial recall
Liking of neutral ads
Liking of target ads
Restraint
Thin ideal internalization
VAS sad
VAS happy
Body focused anxiety
Food intake (kcal)
p < .05.
p < .01.
p < .001
1
2
–
.07
.09
.13
.10
.12
.38***
.01
.14
.19
.35***
.03
–
.11
.05
.12
.18
.01
.09
.11
.06
.01
.17
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
–
.48***
.30**
.10
–
.29**
.10
–
.06
–
.06
.13
.15
.05
.20*
.22*
.28**
.19*
.03
–
.06
.24
.26**
.01
.03
.01
.14
.09
–
.30*
.15
.06
.03
.05
.01
.03
–
.12
.15
.23
.02
.03
.03
–
.47***
.12
.19*
.60***
.03
.13
.14
.47***
.08
274
D.J. Anschutz et al. / Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
p < .001. In addition, commercial condition had a significant
main effect on post-test sadness while controlling for pre-test
sadness, F(2, 106) = 4.15, p = .018. Post-hoc comparisons (Bonferroni) revealed that participants in the Dove1 condition felt
significantly sadder than participants in the Nivea1 condition
after watching television (p = .017). No significant differences
were found on sadness between the Dove1 condition and
the neutral condition or between the Nivea1 condition and the
neutral commercial condition.
Happiness
The results showed that pre-test happiness scores was
positively related to post-test happiness, F(1, 106) = 45.51,
p < .001. No significant main effect of commercial condition was
found on happiness after watching television, F(2, 106) = 0.34, ns,
indicating that there were no differences between participants in
the three commercial conditions on their happiness scores after
watching television.
Body focused anxiety
To test the main effect of commercial condition on body focused
anxiety an analysis of variance was conducted, controlling for BMI.
The results showed that BMI had a positive main effect on body
focused anxiety, F(1, 103) = 15.48, p < .001. The higher the BMI of
the participant, the higher her body focused anxiety was. No main
effects were found for commercial condition on body focused
anxiety, F(2, 103) = 0.82, ns.
Food intake
The results of the analysis of variance with food intake as
dependent variable showed that commercial condition had a
significant main effect on food intake F(2, 107) = 3.40, p < .05. Posthoc comparisons (Bonferroni) revealed that participants in the
Dove1 condition ate significantly less than participants in the
Nivea1 condition (p < .05), whereas no significant differences
were found between the neutral commercial condition and the
Dove1 condition or the Nivea1 condition on food intake.
It was checked whether sadness mediated the relation between
commercial exposure and food intake, but this appeared not to be
the case. This suggests that the effects of commercials exposure on
mood and food intake comprise different processes.
Moderating variables
It was tested whether restraint or thin ideal internalization
moderated the relation between commercial condition and sadness,
happiness, body focused anxiety or food intake, but no significant
interaction effects were found between commercial condition and
restraint or thin ideal internalization on all dependent variables.
Discussion
The aim of the present study was to test the effects of
commercials using less thin models on mood, body focused
anxiety, and food intake as compared to the effects of commercials
using thin models. The results showed that although no differences
were found on body focused anxiety, participants who were
exposed to the commercials using less thin models felt sadder than
participants who were exposed to the commercials using thin
models. Furthermore, when exposed to commercials using less
thin models the participants ate less than when exposed to
commercials using thin models. The effects of these commercials
on mood, body focused anxiety or food intake were not found to be
moderated by restrained eating or thin ideal internalization.
Since studies examining magazine exposure found that women
felt better about their own body after exposure to less thin models
than when exposed to thin models (e.g., Dittmar, Halliwell, &
Stirling, 2009; Dittmar & Howard, 2004; Halliwell & Dittmar, 2004;
Wilcox & Laird, 2000), it was expected that exposure to television
commercials using less thin models would have the same effect on
women’s body image. Nevertheless, the results of the present
study show that body focused anxiety scores did not differ
between women who were exposed to commercials using less thin
models and women who were exposed to commercials using thin
models. This suggests that the commercials using ‘realistic’ models
at least do not have the positive effect on body image they were
expected and pretended to have. Perhaps, television commercial
exposure differs from magazine exposure regarding the effects on
body image (see also Tiggemann, 2003). For example, the storyline
of the television commercials might have distracted the women
from actual perception of the body sizes of the models, which kept
these commercials from influencing body focused anxiety.
Previous studies using still images often exposed the participants
to the pictures solely without embedding them into a magazine.
This might explain the differences between their findings and our
findings since we embedded the television commercials into a
movie interrupted by a commercial break, which might be more
naturalistic but at the same time the context might have distracted
participants from the body figures of the models in our target
commercials. In line with this, it is possible that television
commercial exposure does not affect body focused anxiety on the
short-term, although mood and food intake (behavior) were
affected immediately. It could be that they contribute to thin ideal
norms over time, without making women feel better or worse
about themselves on the short-term. Future studies could
experimentally test the differences between the processes through
which magazine and television exposure affect body image, to
further examine whether and how they differ from each other.
Women exposed to these commercials felt sadder, and ate less
than women exposed to commercials using thin models. A
possible explanation for the effect found on sad mood might be
that women are reminded of the thin beauty ideal by the Dove1
commercials, since these commercials explicitly refer to the
beauty ideal. In contrast, the Nivea1 commercials mainly focus
on the products advantages and not at all on the model’s body
figure. In that case, heightened ‘awareness’ of the beauty ideal
and confrontation with the difficulty to live up to these beauty
ideal standards for the ‘average’ women might have caused the
participants in the Dove1 condition to have a more negative
mood state and eat less. The explicit emphasis that is placed on
the use of ‘realistic models’, which is probably a marketing
strategy used to facilitate women viewers to identify with the
models in these commercials, might also have activated higher
self-awareness regarding their body figure. Recently, Dalley and
Buunk (2009) found that when women perceived higher
similarity to a prototype of a ‘fat’ woman, they were more likely
to engage in dieting behavior when they had a more negative
attitude towards that prototype they felt similar to. They
suggested that dieting behavior might primarily be motivated
by a fear of being or becoming fat than by a desire to be thin.
Although the Dove1 models were obviously not really ‘fat’, the
mechanism they suggested might explain our findings as well.
Participants in the Dove1 condition might have identified with
the models in the commercials and these models might have
triggered a fear of becoming fat in the participants, which was
associated with a more negative mood state and lower food
intake as compared to participants who were exposed to the
commercials using thin models.
In contrast to women exposed to the Dove1 commercials,
women exposed to the Nivea1 commercials felt less sad and ate
D.J. Anschutz et al. / Body Image 6 (2009) 270–276
more snack food. Perhaps the participants were inspired by the
thin models, and engaged in a ‘thinness fantasy’ in which they felt
thinner themselves and therefore ate more. We should stress that
although ‘inspiration’ by thin models sounds rather positive, it
might be a negative consequence of internalization of the thin ideal
in Western women. Previously, Mills et al. (2002) found an
inspiration effect in restrained eaters after exposure to thin model
images, and also found restrained eaters eating more after being
‘inspired.’ However, it remains unclear whether women just feel
less sad or are indeed inspired by the thin models (in that they
think of themselves as being thinner than they actually are) and, in
addition, why they would then eat more after being inspired.
Future studies should further explore the ‘inspiration theory’ of
exposure to thin media models, as well as the above-mentioned
‘fear of fat theory’ of exposure to less thin media models.
In the present study, we did not find differences between
restrained and unrestrained eaters or women high or low on thin
ideal internalization in the relation between commercial condition
and mood or food intake. This might be explained by the fact that
the commercials that were used in this study targeted all young
women. Previous studies finding a moderating effect of restraint
used commercials promoting diet-related products as well which
obviously target restrained eaters specifically (Anschutz, Van
Strien, et al., 2008; Seddon & Berry, 1996; Strauss et al., 1994;
Warren et al., 2005). The results of the present study suggest that
television commercials promoting common beauty products are
affecting young women in general and might not differentially
affect women that are assumed to be more pre-occupied with their
body. This might also explain why the effects of the commercials
did not differ between women high or low on thin ideal
internalization, although Cattarin et al. (2000) found a moderating
effect of internalization on body dissatisfaction after exposure to
appearance related commercials. In that study participants were
exposed to a tape that contained only appearance related
commercials or non-appearance related commercials. Perhaps,
our manipulation was more subtle because great effort was taken
to create stimuli as naturalistic as possible. Therefore, the
commercials used in the present study might not have triggered
women with high thin ideal internalization in particular to feel
worse after the commercial exposure. It is important to further
explore the role of possible moderators in the relation between
media exposure and body image to investigate underlying
mechanisms of media effects.
Remarkably, the commercials using less thin models were rated
more positively by the participants than both the commercials
using thin models and the neutral commercials. This explicit
positive judgement might be due to the highly sympathetic
character of the Dove1 commercials. However, indirectly raising
attention of women to the beauty ideal by using ‘realistic’ models
and still subsequently offering products to improve appearance
(i.e., firming gel) seems more likely to be just a smart selling
strategy than an honest attempt to decrease body image concerns
in women. Especially when taking into account that the brand
owner (Unilever) of Dove1 products also owns a lot of other beauty
product and cosmetics brands that still use very thin models (e.g.,
Axe [Lynx], Rexona). Since the explicit liking of the commercials
using less thin women seems to contradict the effects we found on
mood, it would be interesting to examine the implicit evaluations
of the Dove1 commercials in future studies. For example, by using
an implicit association task (IAT; see also Perkins, Forehand,
Greenwald, & Maison, 2008). This task assesses implicitly whether
people have positive or negative associations with certain concepts
and could be used to measure the implicit associations that women
have with the Dove1 commercials.
Some limitations of the present study should be mentioned.
First, the measure we used to assess body focused anxiety might
275
not be adequate to measure state body dissatisfaction, because it
might have been sensitive to demand characteristics. A suggestion
for future studies could be to embed body dissatisfaction questions
between filler questions to disguise the focus on body image.
However, future studies could benefit from developing and
employing less explicit body dissatisfaction measures. For
example, a suggestion could be to measure the self-perception
of the participants, by confronting them with several morphed
photos of their own body and asking them to indicate which is their
own and ideal body. The advantage of this method is that it
measures body dissatisfaction (discrepancy perceived own and
ideal body) and self-perception (discrepancy perceived own and
actual body). Additionally, this method enables to actually
investigate whether the effects of commercials using thin or less
thin models are due to women desiring a thinner body or women
perceiving themselves as being thinner than they actually are in
response to commercials using thin or less thin models. This would
be very interesting when further examining the ‘fear of fat’ or
‘inspiration’ theory. Another limitation might be that we compared
the effects of the Dove1 commercials to the effects of commercials
of one specific brand using thin models (Nivea1). Since a lot of
different brands use thin models, it might be that if we had chosen
another brand, the effects of that brand would be different.
However, we tried to match both brands on the kind and variety of
products, the target group of the commercials, and the familiarity
with the women in our sample, as much as possible. In addition,
specific characteristics of the Dove1 commercials might also have
played a role in our findings (i.e., the explicit focus on the use of
realistic models). Therefore, further research is needed to establish
whether it was the use of less thin models that affected the
participant’s mood and food intake or whether the explicit
reference to the thin ideal played an important role as well in
this relation. In the present study, the participant’s perception of
the body size and attractiveness of the models in the commercials
were not measured, so unfortunately we do not have any data on
whether the perceived body size and attractiveness of the
models differed between the experimental conditions. Therefore,
it would be a great suggestion for future research to include
measurement of the body size and perceived attractiveness of
the models. Another limitation of the present study might have
been using restrained eating as an indicator for body preoccupation/concerns. Finally, the long-term effects of exposure to
commercials explicitly using less thin models are still unknown.
However, when these commercials have an effect on mood and
food intake in such a short period, the effects might be even
stronger over time.
The present study was the first study that examining the effects
of commercials using less thin models on mood, body image and
food intake. In sum, the results of the present study show that
although it is generally assumed that using less thin models has a
positive effect on women’s body image and eating disturbance,
this might not necessarily be the case. Our study is the first to
show that exposure to commercials using less thin models can
affect mood and food intake in a naturalistic setting, regardless of
restraint status or thin ideal internalization. Further, the present
study yields some interesting points of departure for future
research. Future studies are required to further examine the
underlying mechanisms of the effects of exposure to media
models on young women, since the processes through which
exposure to media models influence body image and eating
behaviors are still largely unknown.
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